WASHINGTON, D.C. - Canton-area businessman Benjamin Suarez - accused by the federal government of making illegal campaign donations last year to Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel and Wadsworth Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci - says the charges against him are false and that his employees gave money to the campaigns of their own free will because they were frustrated with the Affordable Care Act.

Suarez also told The Plain Dealer that he asked Mandel - who was then running for U.S. Senate against Democrat Sherrod Brown - to write a letter to California authorities to protest a lawsuit they were about to file over his firm’s advertising and sales practices. He said said the donations from his company’s workers were not in exchange for Mandel’s actions.

Employees of Suarez’s North Canton direct marketing firm, Suarez Corporation Industries, gave roughly $100,000 to both Mandel and Renacci during the 2012 election cycle. In a 35-page indictment filed last month, the federal government claims Suarez illegally reimbursed his workers for those political donations. Suarez says that’s not true.

“Every statement in the indictment is false,” Suarez said in a Friday interview. “I have never done anything illegal. I do not do anything illegal, period, nor does anyone else at my company.”

Suarez said he believes that many companies do reimburse employees for political donations to candidates, but he has never done so.

Suarez said he asked his executives to donate to Renacci and Mandel because he wanted Republicans to take control of the U.S. government in the 2012 election and overturn the health care law President Barack Obama advocated, commonly known as “Obamacare.” With that same goal, Suarez established an Akron-based SuperPAC called “Empower Citizens Network” that spent more than $300,000 on Ohio newspaper, cable television and radio ads that advocated rescinding the health care law and rejecting Obama’s re-election.

He claims the law forced businesses to lay off workers or reduce their hours, giving them less income to spend on products sold by his company. He estimates the law cost his company more $200 million in sales, cutting his employees’ profit-sharing income. Suarez says yearly income for Suarez executives dropped from more than $1 million yearly to roughly $500,000 because of the law, which motivated political donations from people who hadn’t previously been politically active.

“Obamacare is the albatross in our economy right now,” says Suarez.

Less than a month after Mandel sent a several public officials in California a letter that threatened them with legal action if they continued what he described as their "victimization and attack on Ohio jobs," 10 of the state's county district attorneys filed a lawsuit in Alameda County that accused Suarez of selling "unapproved and misbranded drugs and devices," and making "unsubstantiated false/and or misleading" claims about their benefits. It seeks fines and restitution of at least $5 million.

A management conference in the case is scheduled for Nov. 4 before Judge Wynne Carvill, court records say.

The lawsuit targets more than a dozen SCI products including Arthri-Zen, a “topical relief cream” which is supposed to relieve joint pain and other symptoms; BeePOWER Surge, which is supposed to prevent allergy and blood pressure problems and remedy sleep and memory difficulties; and Dr. Frank Ryan’s Abdominal Fat Reducer, which is touted as “clinically proven to reduce your pot belly without changing your diet or physical activity.”

“Defendants advertised and sold each product in a manner that mislead (sic) consumers into believing there was a real, independent “lab” and scientific testing behind each and every product,” the legal complaint says. “Defendants had a significant financial incentive to suppress, misrepresent, and/or conceal any potential dangers as well as the exaggerate and fabricate their benefits.”

Legal papers that Suarez filed in the case accuse the plaintiffs of selectively prosecuting the case “with an effect that is prejudicial, discriminatory, arbitrary, and an abuse of discretion.”

Although Suarez and his corporate counsel, David Calevski, say they are working to settle the lawsuit, Suarez blamed it on an “unconstitutional law” in California “where they can file a lawsuit against a company without any substantiation or proof of damage.”

“It is a revenue generator for them,” Suarez said. “With this law, you have to prove yourself innocent. We believe it is not in the public interest.”

Two months before Mandel sent his letter to California's state treasurer, attorney general, and two of its district attorneys, a group that identified itself as "The American Association of Business Employees" sent mailers to homes in California's Napa County, to attack its district attorney, Gary Lieberstein, and his assistant, Daryl Roberts. Lieberstein is one of the district attorneys who filed the lawsuit against Suarez and his company, and Mandel's letter was copied to him.

The mailer, publicized by the Napa Valley Register, called Lieberstein a "ringleader" in a "a state sponsored racket" attempting to "extort money from hundreds of businesses each year in California and across the nation."

“We are a group of over 800 employees of a company that is being threatened by this racket along with millions of employees of many other companies,” the mailer said. “Our company is Suarez Corporation Industries (SCI) located in Canton, Ohio. …. We could also lose our jobs if the extorted money payout being demanded puts our company out of business, as it has in many cases with other companies.”

The letter claimed that Lieberstein and other district attorneys find “pigeon companies” that they target for frivolous lawsuits under the guise of consumer protection, but with the real purpose of “revenue generation for their county and offices which would provide them with a great deal of extra perks.”

“This racket has cost millions of jobs to employees of innocent companies across the nation,” the letter said. “It has caused many of these employees to lose their homes, their children go hungry and cry everyday, suicides and homelessness. These ruthless D.A.’s like Lieberstein and Roberts do not care. They live a life of luxury off this racket.”

The letter solicited contributions for a recall campaign against Lieberstein and other “rogue D.A.s” and said “efforts are now underway for a Congressional investigation of this racket and to enact federal laws that will repeal the unconstitutional laws and court decisions supporting this racket.” The letter was signed by Calevski.

“Apparently companies such as this don’t believe they should be regulated whatsoever, “ Lieberstein told the Napa Valley paper in response to the letter.

Renacci said he did not write letters on Suarez’ behalf. He said Mandel sent him a letter that urged him to introduce legislation on Suarez’ behalf, but he did not do so.

Calevski said the company had once sought legislation to establish national advertising regulations that would supercede state laws. He said a patchwork of differing regulations from state to state makes it hard for companies like Suarez to advertise nationally. He said no bill was ever introduced, and his company did not “to my knowledge” contact Renacci about it.

The California case is the latest in a series of clashes Suarez has had with state and federal regulators. As far back as 1978, legal records show the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Ohio Attorney General prosecuted Suarez for false labeling and advertising in selling “No-Hunger Bread,” a diet-aid product the company claimed could also cure cancer.

In 1985, the U.S. Postal Service filed a complaint against Suarez’ company after it mailed a solicitation to 1.9 million consumers suggesting they were entitled to “unclaimed funds” lost in government accounts, and that for $19, Suarez would help them recover the money. Those who replied to the solicitation were sent a list of 50 state offices to write to, legal documents say.

In 1991, New Jersey authorities investigated the company’s sales of a “Desert Storm” brooch and savings bond. Because the ads failed to note the value of the bond or brooch, Suarez agreed to withdraw the ads and offer refunds to customers, legal records say. The company has also been forced to discontinue some of its mail solicitations and to pay civil penalties in Idaho and Indiana, court records show.

For several years in the 1990s, Suarez repeatedly attacked West Virginia Attorney General Darrell McGraw, a Democrat, after McGraw filed a lawsuit that alleged Suarez repeatedly violated the state’s consumer protection laws for direct mailings that told consumers they’d won a free cubic zirconium gem. The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia eventually upheld a lower court ruling that ordered Suarez to stop sending the mailings and to provide refunds to customers.

“The circuit court properly determined that violations occurred, and the circuit court acted within its discretion in awarding the permanent injunction,” its 1998 decision said.

In 1995, Suarez filed a lawsuit against McGraw that claimed his company was being “harassed and victimized by bad faith litigation solely in retaliation for exercise of its constitutional rights,” according to an SCI press release about the lawsuit. Suarez later ran an unsuccessful $300,000 independent campaign to oust McGraw from office, news reports said.

Suarez also fought back against a Republican attorney general in Washington state, Ken Eikenberry, who accused his company of using misleading tactics to market jewelry settings. “Among the tactics was mailing out ‘cubic zirconium diamond simulants’ - which wholesale for about $2.67 a carat - as prizes supposedly worth $100,” the Seattle Times reported.

When Eikenberry ran for governor in 1992, Suarez Corporation spent $50,000 to place newspaper and radio ads that accused him of scaring companies away from the state with grandstanding consumer crusades. They warned that if he became governor “your taxes will go through the ceiling and the state will go down the drain!”

"Company President Benjamin Suarez makes no bones about his motive for taking out the ads: revenge for a suit Eikenberry filed against his company, alleging it misled consumers," The Seattle Times wrote at the time. Eikenberry lost his gubernatorial bid to Democrat Mike Lowry.

Suarez says that his company has been in business for 44 years, and the number of lawsuits it has faced are small for a business of its size. Claims the company makes about its products are substantiated by tests performed by its quality control department, he says.

“If we have technical violations, we pay a fine,” Suarez says. “If we have a regulator that is trying to run for higher office and make a name for himself and files an unsubstantiated lawsuit against us, we fight back and publicize it. That is why we get in the news more.”

Suarez has also gone after federal officials who angered him. When longtime Texas Democratic congressman Jack Brooks promoted a proposal that would tax mail order purchases, Suarez recruited Republican Steve Stockman to run against him. Texas media reported that Suarez paid more than $80,000 of Stockman’s expenses in a 1990 congressional challenge. Stockman did not win that year, though he defeated Brooks in 1994.

"'In most cases, representatives like Jack Brooks who do not work in the public interest but who pander to special interests with big lobbies and PACS can usually do so without facing consequences," Benjamin Suarez wrote in a letter to other legislators. "This time, members of Congress who support this irresponsible bill will face consequences from an opposition lobby and PAC, having great expertise and resources to defeat them in future elections."

When the Better Business Bureau in Canton dropped Suarez Corp. from its membership rolls in 1995, the company filed a $24 million lawsuit against the organization, charging it with violating “the federal Racketeer Influenced and Criminal Organization Act.” According to the Associated Press, the lawsuit alleged the Canton bureau terminated the company’s membership because “the state of West Virginia, through one of its officers, did provide significant overt or covert encouragement to defendants to expel SCI from its membership.”

Frank Cilona, president and CEO of the Canton Better Business Bureau, said the case was “settled and dismissed to the mutual agreement of the parties.”

“The parties have entered into an agreement of settlement and mutual release,” said Cilona, adding that the lawsuit occurred before his arrival at the organization. “The terms of the settlement are confidential. The parties have no further comment.”

Currently, the Better Business Bureau’s website gives the company an “F” rating. The group says it has received complaints about Suarez’s ad claims for the company’s Edenpure Infrared space heaters, its Pure Wash Natural molecule generators, and its weight-loss products, like Dr. Frank Ryan’s Abdominal Fat Reducer.

“Complaints for this company indicate a pattern that concerns customer service issues, product quality, delivery issues and advertising claims,” says the Better Business Bureau’s website.

Calevski says Suarez is trying to improve its relationship with the Better Business Bureau and improve the company’s rating.

“We have conversations with them all the time, trying to rectify some of the issues,” says Calveski. “Hopefully, that rating will improve in the near future.”

Suarez, 72, launched his company in 1968 after working as a computer programmer at Babcock & Wilcox. The company employs more than 800 people in Northeast Ohio, and recently relocated its small appliance manufacturing facilities to the area from China. Several of its products are endorsed by former New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath, and Suarez says his company had prior celebrity endorsement deals with Hollywood stars Burt Reynolds and Zsa Zsa Gabor.

A graduate of the University of Akron, Suarez has endowed what he describes as a “neuromarketing research” laboratory at the school, where researchers put brainwave headsets and other biofeedback devices on subjects to test whether they have a favorable reaction to new products.

“We show people products and ads, and depending on what part of their brain lights up, we can tell the likelihood of success,” he says.