If you are going to be a criminal in Montgomery County, you need to become AUSA Brent Tabacchi’s friend. Become a confidential informant, like Mike Marshall of United Demolition, then you can basically rip off people left and right, entrap public officials, and be protected by the “outstanding performer” Brent Tabacchi [1].
Tabacchi is so outstanding that he managed to get a public official on tape, accepting bribes to deliver contracts (which he never delivered) and only sending him to 6 months in prison (RoShawn Winburn) or City Commissioner Joey Williams- who, while sentenced to a year in prison, only did 3 months and 21 days.
But, if you’re just a crooked contractor, who isn’t a “friend of Brent” – you can plead no contest- and only risk 9-36 months in prison or community sanctions:
A contractor accused of taking money from victims of the 2019 Memorial Day tornadoes for home repairs but then failing to do the work was convicted earlier this month.
Brandon Valandingham, 36, pleaded no contest to one count of theft and was found guilty Sept. 2, according to Montgomery County Common Pleas Court records.
The Dayton Daily News revealed complaints against Valandingham and his company as part of the newspaper’s project walking the path of the EF4 tornado that hit the region on Memorial Day 2019 and investigating obstacles to recovery. Valandingham was arrested on charges in Miami County during the course of the newspaper’s investigation.
He is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 30 and is facing nine to 36 months in prison. He is also eligible for Community Control sanctions.
Valandingham, owner of Buckeye Storm Solutions, was initially indicted on eight counts of theft involving four victims.
Source: Contractor accused of repair scam convicted – Dayton Daily News [2]
I’m staying away from the whole other can of corrupt worms in Montgomery County, where if County “Prosecutor” Mat Heck doesn’t like you, people can steal from you and not face prosecution. [3]
The beauty of deals instead of court is the public never gets to see the actual dirt, because it never gets aired. Public investigations stay private, to prevent further embarrassment to those who went astray of the law. As part of the process, the dance, every defendant is provided with “discovery”- the information, evidence, that got them in trouble. If there’s no public arguments, that information stays in the file. Often times, defendants are embarrassed by the discovery and want to keep it hushed up. Sometimes, parties agree to settle and not disclose what happened. Sometimes this is a good thing- and other times, like when Firestone was settling suits about the dangers of its tires, to the general detriment of public, who should have known that their products were defective [4].
The reality in the “Culture of Corruption” that the FBI claims is alive and well in Dayton- is that the FBI has yet to prosecute a single person who signed a check in reward for corrupt bidding practices. Joey Williams can’t steer a contract by himself. It takes 3 votes on the commission- on an item advanced by the City Manager- which ostensibly was vetted by purchasing and the department that needed the contract in the first place. In other words, we have prosecuted a few of the bullets, but not the gun, or the person who pulled the trigger.
Mike Marshall bilked Brian Higgins out of $40K of insurance money that was supposed to fix Higgins home where a fish tank had leaked. Marshall used that money to build a patio for Joey Williams and to bring his bank account out of the red. Higgins, tried to sue Marshall for the same thing that Valandingham did to people- but, Tabacchi intervened with the help of Judge Rose and ordered Higgins to collect up his discovery that he’d submitted as evidence against Marshall, and threatened Higgins for “exposing his CI.” Only problem, is that this blog- and even the Dayton Daily news much later, had identified Marshall [5]. As one of the people who was given the Higgins discovery- I received a threatening letter last week, telling me to dispose of it.
The reality is, my tax dollars paid for this investigation. And, just as in the Pentagon Papers [6], the public has a right to know what their government has been involved in.
I can’t make the post where I identify Williams working as a CI [7]– go away. That’s not how the internet works. But, it seems AUSA Tabacchi isn’t very computer literate to begin with.
One of the documents Higgins has been looking for is a letter he signed on January 21, 2020 where he supposedly went to meet with the Feds to talk about Chicago corruption, and it’s been missing, until today. What Tabacchi forwarded to Higgin’s new attorney, is almost laughable if Tabacchi actually sent it. What appears to be a letter written after the “signing date” of January 21 2020 (since Microsoft Word doesn’t like dates in the past- it autofilled 2021), yet the third page, the signature page (signed in 2020)- seems to be from a different document- where page numbers were used (usually, if you use page numbers- they are on every page). And, with a bad cut and paste- the font size in the disclosure blocks for Higgins and his then attorney, Tony Cicero, isn’t even the same size.
What we have below is a forgery, possibly committed by an AUSA who can’t get his story straight, or actually prosecute anyone at the heart of the “Culture of Corruption.”
Only in Dayton. I wish I could make this shit up.
[…] AUSA Brent Tabacchi, king of the get out of jail free card posted on September 24, 2020 […]
What different font size are you talking about? The font sizes are identical in the sections signed by Higgins and Cicero. You’re posting nothing that indicates that this document is a forgery, and that is such an enormous claim for you to be making. That is a major allegation.
You point out that the date at the top of the document reads January 21st, 2021 as if that error supports your claim of fraud, but then you immediately explain that it was likely autocorrected to 2021, which…indicates that this error is not an indication of forgery at all. Like…What??? Why include this as if it supports your claim, only to immediately explain a much more logical conclusion as if you didn’t just seconds prior allude to it as evidence that the document is bunk? This makes you sound ridiculous.
Then you point to the page number on the 3rd page as evidence that this document has been deliberately faked. The theory being that the forger accidentally forgot to white out the page number when they were copying this section from another document. It would be one thing if the page number didn’t make sense, but that page JUST so happens to be…that’s right…the actual 3rd page. So, they overlooked the accidental page number, but got amazingly lucky that the section they were copying ALSO happened to be on the 3rd page of this “other” document?
This post really sounds like an unhinged Trump/Qanon conspiracy theory. Disappointing to see this from you.
You said at the end “I wish I could make this shit up.” And yet that is literally exactly what you did. Yikes, buddy.
[…] Higgins- should have been reason for Tabacchi to step out of this in the first place. There is also a questionable misdated letter that’s floating around that seems to misrepresent what happened in a discussion between Higgins and Tabacchi over a […]