Former TN GOP House Speaker Convicted Of Bribery

May 16, 2025 Crime, Republicans

Nashville’s ABC affiliate reports:

A jury of six men and six women found former House Speaker Glen Casada guilty for his involvement in what was a trial on public corruption charges against him. He was found guilty on 17 of 19 counts. The jury found his aide Cade Cothren guilty on all charges for his stake in the trial.

Former House Speaker Casada, 65, and his aide Cothren, 38, were charged in a multi-count indictment that accuses them of engaging in a bribery and kickback scheme in conjunction with a deal to provide state-funded constituent mailing services named Phoenix Solutions for members of the House Republican Caucus.

Prosecutors say the two men conspired together in a “scheme involving fraud, bribery, theft, and money laundering,” in which they “leveraged elected office for private profit, while using lies and concealment as means to accomplish their criminal goals.”

The Associated Press reports:

The current House speaker, Cameron Sexton, helped authorities in the case against his predecessor since taking the job in 2019, he has said. Sexton was among the lawmakers and staffers who testified to the grand jury.

Casada resigned as House speaker in August 2019 after a no-confidence vote from fellow House Republicans due to swirling scandals, including revelations he exchanged sexually explicit text messages about women years ago with Cothren.

Not long before that, Cothren also left his post over those texts and racist texts, coupled with an admission he used cocaine inside a legislative office building when he held a previous job.

There’s much more at both links, including about the involvement of another now-former GOP state rep, who was secretly recorded spilling the beans.

Casada last appeared on JMG in 2019 when he refused to resign after Cothren was exposed for N-word laden text messages about “soliciting oral sex and naked photos from an intern” and “calling Metro police officers who gave him parking tickets ‘rent a cop cocksuckers.’”

At the time, the pair were also accused of doctoring an email from a black student activist.

Casada first appeared on JMG in 2009 when he was party to a Tennessee GOP lawsuit accusing Barack Obama of not being a US citizen and therefore ineligible to be president.



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