The FBI Set Me Up While I Was Running for Mayor — Then I Got Sent To Prison | PG Sittenfeld
August 9, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readThe FBI Spent Millions to Manufacture a Crime — Then Sent Him to Prison
PG Sittenfeld was a three-term Cincinnati city councilmember, the youngest person ever elected to that body, and the clear frontrunner to become mayor. He had a Princeton degree, a Marshall Scholarship to Oxford, and a reputation as a pro-development Democrat who loved his hometown. Then the FBI spent somewhere between two and five million dollars building a fake real estate development, deploying undercover agents, and wiring up a former NFL player who was Sittenfeld's friend — all to see if they could get him to commit a crime. When they couldn't, they manufactured one anyway.
The Sting That Wouldn't Die
The FBI's operation began when two undercover agents posed as out-of-town investors and asked for a meeting. Sittenfeld met them for less than an hour, told them the same thing he told everyone — "if I can help you with anything, let me know" — and nothing came of it. Nine months later, his friend Chinedum Ndukwe, a former Cincinnati Bengals player who had gotten himself into serious legal trouble and become a cooperating witness, reintroduced the agents. Ndukwe told Sittenfeld the investors wanted to make campaign donations and needed to know the project would be "a yes vote without a doubt."
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:01) **Poshmark, TalkSpace, Belmont Park Village, Amazon Music Unlimited, PC Richard & Sun Ads** - Advertisements for sponsors and local businesses.
- 2 (02:01) **Introduction: PG Sittenfeld's Story** - Host Ian Bick introduces PG Sittenfeld, a former Cincinnati City Council member and mayoral candidate who was convicted in an FBI sting.
- 3 (02:21) **Upbringing and Early Ambitions** - Sittenfeld describes his stable, civically engaged childhood and his early dreams of being a writer or politician.
- 4 (11:07) **Return to Cincinnati and Entry into Politics** - Sittenfeld moves home, starts a career in education non-profits, and quickly runs for Cincinnati City Council.
- 5 (23:06) **The FBI Sting: How the Investigation Began** - Sittenfeld details how he was targeted by undercover FBI agents posing as real estate investors.
- 6 (26:57) **Discovering the Indictment** - Sittenfeld describes the shock of learning he was about to be indicted for public corruption.
- 7 (30:55) **The "Prosecutorial Truman Show"** - Sittenfeld explains how the FBI created an elaborate, fake world to fabricate a crime.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
PG Sittenfeld grew up in Ohio in a good family, went to Princeton, worked in nonprofits, and eventually built a three term career on Cincinnati City Council before an unexpected FBI indictment for bribery and extortion — built around an undercover operation he argues never should have produced charges — derailed everything he had spent his career building at the exact moment he was running for mayor. In this episode of Locked In with Ian Bick, he shares what the FBI indictment actually looked like, what going to trial and losing some counts actually felt like, what the 16 month sentence and the four months he served inside federal prison actually required of him, and what eventually getting out for appeal, losing that appeal, receiving a pardon from Donald Trump, and then having the Supreme Court rule in his favor actually produced in terms of what he now understands about the federal justice system and the people who run it.
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#fbi #truecrimestories #ohio #prison
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Connect with PG Sittenfeld:
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Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick:
https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en
Timestamps:
00:00 Introducing PG Sittenfeld
00:18 Upbringing and family life
04:20 Going to Princeton
07:20 Moving to England
09:07 Returning to Cincinnati
10:40 Running for city council
14:34 Life as an elected official
18:26 The FBI investigation begins
24:50 The cooperating witness
25:44 The prosecutorial Truman Show
31:36 The day of the arrest
44:32 A year and a half to trial
47:45 The trial and the verdict
52:00 The inconsistent verdict
56:20 Jury selection and deliberation
57:31 Sentencing to prison
01:01:42 Reporting to prison camp
01:05:25 Life inside the camp
01:13:43 The Sixth Circuit ruling
01:15:31 Shocking early release
01:19:41 The Supreme Court petition
01:21:52 Receiving a presidential pardon
01:26:18 Lessons learned and moving forward
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