Friend of ex-Councilman Jeff Pastor sentenced to 12 months for bribery scheme
A friend of former Cincinnati City Councilman Jeff Pastor who prosecutors say assisted Pastor in a bribery scheme was sentenced Tuesday to 12 months in prison.
Tyran Marshall, 38, served as Pastor's middleman, prosecutors say, coordinating bribe payments and laundering the money through a nonprofit Marshall created.
Marshall's actions, according to prosecutors, were designed to hide Pastor's scheme from the public.
Marshall was charged along with Pastor in 2020 in federal court in Cincinnati. Both pleaded guilty. Pastor began serving a two-year prison sentence in January. Marshall pleaded guilty in December to a money laundering charge. As part of the plea agreement, he faced a maximum of 18 months in prison.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Matthew McFarland imposed a sentence that he noted was half of what Pastor received.
Marshall's attorney, Clyde Bennett II, had argued that Marshall's role in the scheme was limited. It was Pastor, an elected official, "who primarily concocted and executed" it, Bennett said.
McFarland talked about Marshall's education, a bachelor's degree in marketing and a master's degree in leadership, as well as his extensive family support.
"You should have known better not to do this," he told Marshall.
Scheme became increasingly 'brazen'
Both Pastor's and Marshall's conduct involved several corrupt schemes, prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum, where each was "more brazen than the last."
Prosecutors described a September 2018 trip to Miami, Florida, during Pastor's first term on city council, where he and Marshall traveled on a private jet to meet with men they thought were investors in a development project.
The investors were actually undercover FBI agents. Pastor told the agents that he would vote in favor of the project and agreed to accept $15,000 for his support, according to court documents. Pastor said he could receive the money through Marshall's nonprofit, "Ummah Strength."
The investigation involved at least two cooperating witnesses who were local developers. In October 2018, a month after traveling to Miami, Marshall solicited $20,000 from an unnamed developer, court documents say.
Marshall also met with a second unnamed developer about another project. Marshall solicited a $22,500 donation for his nonprofit, which included $2,250 to file the proper paperwork.
As time passed, prosecutors say in court documents, the solicitations evolved from bribe payments to "base salaries" for both Marshall and Pastor.
At one point, Marshall reached out to one of the undercover agents posing as an investor on Pastor's behalf about salaries − at the same time as both Marshall and Pastor sought salaries from one of the cooperating witnesses.
The total dollar amount they sought from the cooperating witness was $200,000, according to court documents: $115,000 for Pastor and $85,000 for Marshall.
The requests for salaries were rejected.
Judge: Case about 'personal greed'
McFarland said he was troubled by Marshall's 2016 conviction in Hamilton County on heroin and cocaine trafficking charges. Marshall was still on probation for that case when he and Pastor were involved in the bribery scheme.
Without that, McFarland said he would have considered sentencing Marshall to probation for money laundering.
Marshall's conduct, McFarland said, was about "personal gain and personal greed."
The judge set Marshall's sentence at 12 months and a day, at the request of prosecutors, allowing him to be eligible for good time credit in prison. Without the extra day, he wouldn't be eligible.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Friend of ex-Councilman Jeff Pastor sentenced in bribery scheme
