The corruption starts here. There is a lot of information to digest in this case. I will show you how one man may be responsible for all of this political corruption. Walter Celley was the township administrator in Perrysburg Township. This would be comparable to a mayor. He controlled the daily operations of the township. Jason Craig and Kristie Koester purchased a property from Celley for $40,000. For a long period of time, Jason would deliver payment for this property to Celley at the township trustee meetings. Craig and Celley generally got along well until one day Celley went a bit nuts and began threatening Jason over a payment not delivered on time. For the record, you can read the communication from Celley in the attached response to the lawsuit.

It was forgotten until 2014 when Jason began hiring acts for the PHCA annual festival.

In 2014 the board decided to allow hip hop artists to be a part of the festival to attempt to increase attendance and not lose money. This did not go ever well with Celley. While opinions vary on the true reasoning, the owner of a local medical center thought it fit. In a phone call with Jason, Celley inquired why Jason was having “those” people perform at the festival at which time Jason asked if he was talking about black people. In his defense, Celley stated that it wasn’t about race, it was about the music. Jason argued that it was a Mexican American festival. Jason went on to argue that they had rock groups and country groups perform so why not Coolio and Bones Thugs and Harmony?

Celley seemingly backed down but it was only to reload. Within weeks of that conversation, Celley contacted Jason and began leveling threats of criminal actions over the festival.

Celley along with a representative from the Police came to give Jason new and improved directions for how they had to operate for security reasons. Celley, suspiciously, was walking through the community center at the time of this conversation. Again, within weeks a letter of a threat to evict the PHCA from the community center arrived with what were humorous reasons for eviction. They even could be described as childish and desperate. Celley made sure, allegedly, that all of these issues caught the attention of the media.

September 2014, Jason attempted to deliver a payment on the property after the trustee meeting but Celley was nowhere to be found. Jason mailed it and it was received by Celley. It was not cashed. However, the next month’s payment for October 2014 was cashed.

See the lawsuit response here.

After these festival was over, a bill from the Perrysburg township was sent to the PHCA for tens of thousands of dollars. This bill included zip ties, extra police charges, and even charges for the fire department being near by. Also all kinds of supplies for the police. This had never happened in the history of the PHCA festival. According to Gilmore of the Township Police, there was chatter and a conversation with Toledo’s gang unit that there was going to be gang violence. Jason called BS believing that this was just another step in Celley plan to mess with the PHCA and Jason. Ironically, it turned out to be the single most peaceful weekend. Not a single incident. “Those people” were well-behaved and respectful even when the township forced the festival to stop at midnight, which for the record, had never happened before.

After receiving the eviction notice and the insane bill, Jason wrote an email to township trustee Gary Britten outlining Celley’s action and stating Celley was taking shots at the PHCA over a personal war with Jason. Again within days, Jason received a phone call from an advisor by the name of Paul Belazis and Fred Moor, former respectable board members and local businessmen, stating they had received a phone call from the township advising Jason to back off. Jason reluctantly agreed. Celley sent a local former policeman to join the board as the township representative, where he proceed to attend one meeting, read a letter bashing Jason with Celley talking points, and then resigned afterward because the board refused to throw Jason off. Not a single vote or motion to remove Jason because all members knew the true motivation behind township administrator Celley’s efforts. A few days after Jason filed the complaint to Britten, Celley filed for foreclosure on Jason and Kristie’s property and all of their investment properties.

Walter Celley and his business partner Dawn Sanderson (attorney and real estate partner) also sued a young family that had sold a house to Jason and Kristie and an elderly couple who purchased a piece of land from Jason and Kristie. These people had built a home on it and Celley and Sanderson were attempting to force them to sell it. The balance on the actual loan was probably around $30,000. By the time Dawn Sanderson was through filing frivolous motions, she had added around $20,000 in lawyers fees.

With no court hearing, the political ally and friend of Walt Celley and Dawn Sanderson granted a summary judgement for the money. Ms. Sanderson filed for wage garnishments to Jason’s volunteer job (PHCA) and Kristie’s job. Of course, racking up more billing hours. The calculation for the garnishment was actually less than the payment they were getting anyway.

Remember that this is all about one late payment; late for less than two weeks.

After getting a few payments through garnishment, Sanderson and Celley then requested the court’s permission to send all of Jason and Kristie’s properties and homes to auction. The court approved and a date was scheduled. The taxable value of these properties was around $300,000 but the value at the auction was less than $100,000; a potentially corrupt sale considering the starting bid on the total being nearly exactly the amount owed to Sanderson and Celley. Up until the auction Jason and Kristie had secured an investor who was going to pay the debt and leave Jason and Kristie with their personal home. However, Dawn Sanderson rigged that also because she placed two liens of over $100,000 total through the courts making getting the financing impossible.

With that said, Jason and Kristie managed to figure out the funding and contacted Sanderson who refused to allow them to pay the debt. She stated it was too late even though by law you can fulfill the judgment up until the auction and even until the proper paper work is processed. But, being both the loan holder and the attorney, she got away with what she wanted. In her conversation with Kristie, she stated that no matter who we sent to bid for our properties she could outbid them because all the money goes to her anyway. Typically, all extra money bid on an auction is returned to the homeowner. But Jason knew her plan; she would just add more fees.

Dawn Sanderson would make sure that every penny went to her and Walt Celley. They were taking investments and life savings just because they could.

Here is the kicker. After the auction where she purchased the properties, she contacted Jason and Kristie’s investor and sold the properties to him for additional profit. We are going to keep his name private for now. Coincidentally (sic), the sale of these properties were nearly the same time the Wood County Prosecutors took over investigating this case against Jason at the suggestion of the Ohio Attorney General’s office. This of course being that “political case” pushed by the township and Walt Celley.

See the connection?

During trial, the prosecution accused Jason of stealing the money from the PHCA in order to buy the homes that Walter Celley and Dawn Sanderson took from Jason and Kristie. Dawn Sanderson and Walter Celley owned the “stolen property”. This somehow evaded the prosecution team. The same prosecutors who rub elbows with Celley and Sanderson frequently. They are so closely tied together that Jason’s case could not be transferred to the Judge it was supposed to transfer to because she was the wife of one of the three Perrysburg Township Trustees. There was no attempt to retrieve these “stolen” houses from Walter Celley and Dawn Sanderson. According to the Wood County theory, Walter Celley and Dawn Sanderson are the ones to benefit from the money they alleged was stolen. Political corruption? Sure.