Ohio sues charity, accusing it of pocketing donations meant for East Palestine residents

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio Legal professional Normal Dave Yost is suing a charity he’s accusing of falsely claiming to gather donations for East Palestine residents, he introduced Tuesday morning.

The lawsuit says Mike Peppel, a former congressional and legislative staffer, solicited contributions for his charity, the Ohio Clear Water Fund, which he stated was to offer emergency assist and bottled water by the Second Harvest Meals Financial institution of the Mahoning Valley. As an alternative, Peppel and others pocketed a minimum of $131,000 of the $141,000 raised from over 3,000 donors.

Representatives of Second Harvest Meals Financial institution complained to the Ohio Legal professional Normal’s Workplace that that they had not approved the partnership cited by Peppel, who solicited contributions by mass emails and textual content messages.

Yost’s grievance is filed in Columbiana County. He’s asking for a brief restraining order and preliminary injunction to halt Peppel’s fundraising and protect present charitable belongings.

Peppel, a resident of Leetonia in Columbiana County, previously labored as senior legislative aide to state Sen. Michael Rulli, a Mahoning County Republican, in addition to a staffer for U.S. Rep. Invoice Johnson, a Marietta Republican, in accordance with Ryan Stenger of McKinley Methods, a Canton-based lobbying agency the place Peppel briefly labored earlier this yr.

Second Harvest Meals Financial institution twice informed Peppel to cease promoting the non-existent partnership, Yost stated. After he was known as out, Peppel paid simply $10,000 to the meals financial institution, 7% of what he says he’s raised, Yost stated.

“The concept any individual would so overtly exploit a catastrophe state of affairs and the nice hearts of people that wish to assistance is unconscionable,” Yost stated. “I’m mad as hell about this, and we’re going to ensure this sham charity will get shut down.”

Final week, Peppel informed WFMJ in Youngstown that he hasn’t stored any of the cash, stopped the marketing campaign and deliberate to donate extra to the meals financial institution. He informed the station that a lot of what he had raised had been spent on administrative prices.

Peppel’s lawyer, Dave Thomas, declined remark Tuesday.

Laura Hancock covers state authorities and politics for The Plain Vendor and cleveland.com.