The list of reprehensible individuals donating to Jon Husted’s campaign just got longer, and now includes the man responsible for the disastrous Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool project. According to recent reporting from TiffinOhio, Husted accepted $10,600 from John J. Cafaro, the man whose company received a no-bid federal contract in April to install a water purification system in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which subsequently became infested with algae before the entire pool was drained. Cafaro is also a two-time federal felon, having pled guilty to conspiracy to bribe a Congressman in 2001 and again in 2010 for making a materially false statement to the government.
“Jon Husted clearly has no issue cashing checks from morally bankrupt multimillionaires, having now accepted donations from a felon who defiled a national landmark,” said American Bridge 21st Century Spokesperson Gus Nathanson. “His top priority will always be doing the bidding of the elites who finance his campaigns, and Ohioans deserve better.”
Read more about Husted’s donations from John Cafaro and the elite class:
- Federal Election Commission records show that Team Husted received $28,100 from four members of the Cafaro family between March 2025 and March 2026, $10,600 of which came from John Cafaro.
- Of that $10,600, $7,000 landed in the campaign account and $3,600 in the leadership PAC, the latter reported as an in-kind food and beverage contribution. None of that money has been reimbursed.
- Cafaro’s firm, Greenwater Services of Brookfield, received a $1.7 million no-bid federal contract in April to install a water purification system in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool — the pool that turned bright green with algae days after Donald Trump declared the renovation finished on June 6.
- Cafaro has also been charged with two felonies:
- In 2001 he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to bribe then-U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr., a Youngstown Democrat, and drew 15 months of probation and a $150,000 fine.
- In 2010 he pleaded guilty to a felony count of making a materially false statement to the government — for concealing a $10,000 loan to a staffer on his daughter Capri Cafaro’s 2004 congressional campaign so it would not surface on a federal campaign finance report.
- Husted also accepted donations from Jeffrey Epstein co-conspirator Les Wexner before voting to block the release of the Epstein files.
Published: Aug 7, 2026