AKRON – The hearing Friday was only procedural, but more defense attorneys appeared in Judge Susan Baker Ross’ courtroom than could fit in an elevator.
Most of the 17 defense lawyers listed on the case showed up in person, traveling in for the day from Washington, D.C., Cleveland and Chicago. They all worked for one of two defendants – Chuck Jones, the former CEO of FirstEnergy Corp., and Mike Dowling, an ex-senior vice president who managed the company’s lobbyists.
In late January, the two men are set to stand trial on accusations that they paid a $4.3 million bribe to Sam Randazzo – chair of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, appointed by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine – in exchange for favorable regulatory treatment. That favorable treatment came at the cost of higher prices for FirstEnergy’s 2 million residential electric customers spread around the northern half of the state.
The alleged Randazzo bribe runs parallel to a related allegation that the two FirstEnergy executives paid what federal prosecutors have described as a $60 million bribe to ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, 66, a Republican, who is currently serving a 20-year racketeering sentence in a federal prison near Youngstown.
While Householder is in prison for accepting a bribe, the state’s trial will be the first to put before a jury the question of whether the corporate actors committed crimes by paying those bribes. Both defendants have pleaded not guilty.
Defense doesn’t want witnesses talking about energy prices
The defense attorneys spent Friday arguing that Summit County Common Pleas Judge Susan Baker Ross, a Democrat, should set limits and “guardrails” on the scope of the testimony of the state’s expert witness. That’s Maureen Willis, director of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, whose state office advocates for lower electric prices for residential customers.
They emphasized that Ross shouldn’t allow Willis to connect the favorable energy policies sought by FirstEnergy to higher electric costs for its customers. Prospective jurors will almost certainly be FirstEnergy customers, one defense lawyer told Ross.
“Who pays the cost [of energy policy] is irrelevant to whether or not and how it benefitted FirstEnergy. It’s designed simply to inflame the jury, and it should not be admitted,” said Carole Rendon, a former U.S. attorney appointed by President Barack Obama, now representing Jones.
But higher electric prices are at the heart of the case, said Matt Meyer, the state’s lead attorney in court. Energy prices were what drove the bribe, he said.
“There is no way for the state to present evidence about the effect of corruption on electricity prices without acknowledging that electricity prices are what this case is about,” he argued.
As Meyer spoke, William Scherman, now among the flock of defense attorneys after serving as chief of staff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Council, a federal agency that plays a major role regulating energy prices, whispered in Jones’ ear. Jones, 70, silently nodded.
Ross didn’t rule on this or a spate of other arguments that came up Friday. She scheduled another round of arguments for Nov. 21.
Defense wants more secrecy, Yost thrown out
The defendants’ voluminous demands for secrecy and limits on what facts become public is a feature, not a one-off, of their legal strategy.
Already, Ross has sided with the defense on some instances, blocking from trial evidence related to Randazzo breaking lawyers’ rules of ethical conduct and some of his dealings with Duke Energy, a major utility in Cincinnati, that mirror his work for FirstEnergy.
Their requests go further. They’ve asked Ross to throw Yost off the case and to discount all evidence “unlawfully obtained by the unauthorized” Organized Crime Investigation Commission, a task force that typically tackles mob-adjacent racketeering activity in the state. And they don’t want jurors to know about the defendants’ compensation — which for Jones was more than $65 million over the roughly five-year period at issue.
They’ve also asked her to block the evidence from Householder’s trial, which led to his conviction. That generally includes documents and witness testimony about the company’s transfer of $60 million to a “dark money” nonprofit that Householder secretly controlled. That money benefitted him politically, by helping him and his preferred candidates win, and personally, by paying down his legal and credit card debt with hundreds of thousands of dollars. In exchange, Householder championed bailout legislation worth more than $1 billion to the company.
Randazzo, at 74, died by suicide in April of 2024.
Jurors will only hear that he died, without a cause of death. They also will not be told that Randazzo’s company pleaded guilty, via Randazzo’s widow, who inherited the company, to charges including racketeering and money laundering, per Ross’ order in the case.
FirstEnergy has pushed for secrecy as well
FirstEnergy as a company has mounted a much broader legal fight for secrecy. That has included battles at the PUCO, plus state and federal courts, all seeking to keep text messages, emails and other documents traded in the case out of the public eye.
For the most part, they’ve lost. Court orders and public records requests have forced the release of depositions of company executives plus hundreds of thousands of sometimes damning texts, emails and other records.
For example, one text from Jones to another executive, written months after the company paid Randazzo $4.3 million, said Randazzo “will get it done for us but cannot just jettison all process.” Some of the rulings Randazzo had made to the company’s benefit, Jones said, “has a lot of talk going on in the halls of the PUCO about, does he work there or for us? He’ll move it as fast as he can.”
The company has won others. That includes a years-long fight to overturn a federal judge’s order that would have forced FirstEnergy to turn over two internal investigations, commissioned by its board of directors, of its executives’ conduct.
The allegation against FirstEnergy executives and Randazzo
According to the state, Randazzo’s relationship with FirstEnergy traced back at least to the 2010s, via his representation of the Industrial Energy Users of Ohio, a group of big energy buyers seeking better energy prices.
Randazzo would strike “side deals” for cash with FirstEnergy on IEU’s behalf and in exchange back off on IEU’s legal opposition to the company’s proposed pricing filings at the PUCO. Prosecutors say Randazzo skimmed millions of his clients’ dollars from the settlement pot before disturbing it to the individual members of the association.
In late 2018, the DeWine administration, especially now-U.S. Sen. Jon Husted, recruited Randazzo to serve as the governor’s appointee to be chair of the PUCO. Randazzo at the time was seen as a brilliant energy lawyer, although some parties raised red flags to DeWine’s office about apparent unseemly ties with FirstEnergy. After dining with DeWine in December 2018, the prosecutors say, Jones and Dowling drove to Randazzo’s home in Columbus to discuss the contract with the company.
“Total 4,333,333. Thanks for the visit. Good to see you both,” Randazzo said in a text to Jones.
Jones responded the next morning.
“We’re going to get this handled this year, paid in full, no discount. Don’t forget about us or hurricane Chuck may show up on your doorstep!”
The company executed the payment to Randazzo shortly after the meeting. Despite Randazzo’s contract with FirstEnergy, prosecutors say FirstEnergy was under no legal obligation to pay him. They say the $4.3 million was a bribe masquerading as the termination fee of a contract. The defendants say it was a legitimate termination payout of a contract Randazzo entered with the company.
As chair of the PUCO, Randazzo led the four other members of the commission on several rulings that benefitted FirstEnergy. One absolved the company of a rate review, which prosecutors say would have forced it to cut energy prices for customers. Others helped FirstEnergy collect more costs from customers through the PUCO’s various legal mechanisms.
Randazzo pleaded not guilty, and the prosecutors dropped their cases against him at the time of his death.
‘This is a very complicated, convoluted scheme’
Prosecutors are used to the upper hand when it comes to legal resources, according to Mike Benza, a former federal prosecutor who teaches law at Case Western Reserve University.
Few can match the government’s resources. But Jones and Dowling have the money, he said. Throwing bodies, time and filings can drain and demoralize prosecutors who must answer every motion to keep this or that under wraps.
And when it comes to white collar crimes, Benza said, actors often understand complex legal and financial systems and how to avoid regulators and oversight. So without understanding the legal mechanics of utility rate regulation or the market forces of rate cases, he said, it takes time for investigators (or jurors for that matter) to unspool a conspiracy.
“One reason this takes so long is the people who are involved are the people who are supposed to be watching,” he said. “This is a very complicated, convoluted scheme.”
Ohio’s attorney general makes a cameo appearance
Watching Friday’s arguments from the public seats: Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, a Republican, making an unusual personal appearance (politicians generally leave the grunt legal work to underlings) in a courthouse two hours from his office.
Ross, perhaps the target audience for Yost’s appearance, noted the high profile guest.
Yost, in an interview after the hearing, said his attendance wasn’t necessarily out of concern, though he is “perplexed” by the defendants’ push for secrecy and that too much evidence has been filed under seal.
“This is the corruption case of the century,” he said. “This hearing is pivotal.”
He said he would have preferred that things had moved faster – his office began its investigation in 2023, three years after the FBI made its first arrests, and filed charges in 2024. But corruption investigations take time, he said.
“These cases are vigorously defended, facts are legally complex, and it’s not unusual to see them take time,” he said.
Not long after initiating the case, Yost announced plans to run for governor as a Republican. Given the political nature of the case – both DeWine and Husted have been named in court filings as potential witnesses – Yost released a memorandum promising an “ethics screen” blocking him from the case.
However, Yost dropped out of the race in May given the popularity of now-frontrunner Vivek Ramaswamy. As such, his office lifted the ethics screen, according to a spokeswoman.
Many targeting Jones, Dowling
It’s not just the state attorneys interested in Jones and Dowling.
Prosecutors with the U.S. Department of Justice are preparing for a criminal trial against Jones and Dowling. U.S. District Judge Timothy Black, who oversaw Householder’s trial, scheduled a checkup on the federal case the week before the state trial begins.
Elsewhere in the federal government, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is suing Jones on fraud charges, after collecting $100 million in a settlement from FirstEnergy.
FirstEnergy previously signed a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice in 2021. This required the company to pay a $230 million penalty and assist the federal government in its investigation, in return for the DOJ dropping its indictment of the company for wire fraud. Similarly, it paid a $20.5 million penalty and agreed to cooperate with Yost’s office, in exchange for the State of Ohio dropping its charges against the company.
The investor lawsuit against the company remains in progress, though an attorney representing the various pension funds and other groups accusing FirstEnergy and its executives of securities fraud and insider trading didn’t return an email.
Two men – Jeff Longstreth, a political operative, and Juan Cespedes, a FirstEnergy Solutions lobbyist – pleaded guilty to racketeering and testified for the government in Householder’s trial. They haven’t yet been sentenced in the nearly three years since then.
Another company lobbyist, Matt Borges, was released from federal prison last month, where he had been serving since the summer of 2023. He was accused of paying off a campaign operative for inside information in a referendum campaign FirstEnergy opposed. Borges, in a text message, declined an interview request.
Another lobbyist, Neil Clark, was accused by federal prosecutors of joining in the scheme. He died by suicide before trial.
