Ohio’s former chairman of the Public Utilities Commissioner, facing charges in the state’s biggest corruption case, has been found dead. The body of Sam Randazzo was discovered late Tuesday morning in a building he owned in Columbus. He was 74.
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After more than two years, Attorney General Dave Yost’s civil lawsuit against FirstEnergy, former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, and others connected to the House Bill (HB) 6 scandal is once more being permitted to move forward.
Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge Chris Brown has granted Yost’s motion to lift the stay on proceedings in the case.
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Republicans in the Ohio House are pushing to modify the state’s ethics laws to, among other things, limit elected officials’ ability to serve on corporate boards and require more transparency from lobbyists and utility board applicants.
Representative Derek Merrin (R-Monclova Township), flanked by 11 of the 43 Republicans who backed him for speaker, unveiled proposed legislation, called the “Ohio Ethics and Financial Disclosure Reform Act,” which would make lobbyists disclose all of the money they receive from each client and forbid elected officials from serving on corporate boards of directors after being elected.
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In a Wednesday press release, a former U.S. Congressman and current gubernatorial candidate slammed incumbent Gov. Mike DeWine (R) for allegedly turning a blind eye to warning signs regarding the former chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) who was part of the FirstEnergy corruption scandal.
“Why did Mike DeWine ignore a 200-page warning about Sam Randazzo’s unethical behavior and appoint him to lead the Public Utilities Commission anyway?” said Jim Renacci in the release. “What else did DeWine know about FirstEnergy’s scandalous corruption? There are still several unanswered questions about this scheme that frauded Ohio taxpayers. With every new court filing, news report, or resignation, the FirstEnergy noose keeps tightening around Mike DeWine. Enough is enough: conservatives have a chance next month to vote for real accountable conservative leadership and put an end to Mike DeWine’s 40-year corrupt establishment career.”
The comments came on the heels of a news story published in The Ohio Capital Journal claiming that DeWine was in possession of a 198-page dossier “alleging Sam Randazzo – a lawyer and lobbyist who represented gas companies and industrial scale electricity buyers – used businesses registered in his name to ‘funnel’ money from FirstEnergy to buy real estate.”
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The office of Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has frozen more than $3 million in assets of former Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Chairman Sam Randazzo as part of a state civil lawsuit tied to the ongoing federal criminal probe of a Statehouse corruption scheme.
Yost’s office also has sought a court order to appoint a receiver to go after another $3 million in assets Randazzo allegedly had transferred to accounts his attorneys control immediately after Yost had announced he had a court order to seize up to $8 million in assets in a mid-August.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Renacci has asked Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and Secretary of State Frank LaRose to open another line of investigation into the FirstEnergy Corp. public corruption scandal and incumbent GOP Governor Mike DeWine’s re-election campaign.
Renacci transmitted the joint letter to the Republican statewide officeholders Monday late afternoon in the latest attack attempting to more closely tie DeWine and the corruption scheme from the House Bill 6 passed in July 2019. FirstEnergy pushed the legislation to allow it to tap Ohio electric customers both inside its service territory and that of other investor-owned electric utilities to financially support its two old nuclear power plants located along the Lake Erie shores to the tune of $1.1 billion.
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“(Sam) Randazzo is making moves that will make it harder to hold him financially accountable for accepting bribes,” Yost said in a Friday morning news release
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Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has expanded a civil racketeering lawsuit tied to the federal FirstEnergy Corp. public corruption case to include the former chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio and two fired executives of the Akron, Ohio-based electric utility.
The addition of energy consultant and attorney Sam Randazzo, former FirstEnergy CEO Charles Jones, and Vice President Michael Dowling comes just a few weeks after the utility cut a deal with federal prosecutors where it admitted its role in the scandal and paid a $230 million fine in a deferred prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice.
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COLUMBUS, Ohio – FirstEnergy Corp.’s agreement this week to pay a $230 million fine in the ongoing federal investigation into an Ohio Statehouse bribery scheme has generated more criticism from GOP gubernatorial candidate Jim Renacci who is seeking to take the 2022 Republican nomination from incumbent Governor Mike DeWine. The Akron-based electric utility on Thursday agreed to the massive fine after admitting it paid an energy consultant – who DeWine later selected to be chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio – $4.3 million to help formulate House Bill 6, a 2019 piece of legislation supporting a $1.3 billion ratepayer bailout of two nuclear power plants a FirstEnergy spinoff owns. That legislation passed after an alleged $60 million bribery scheme that funneled cash to the election campaigns of various state legislators through a so-called “dark money” political action committee, or PAC. FirstEnergy has now claimed it paid consultant Sam Randazzo the money for helping craft the legislation and in anticipation of further assistance when he took over as PUCO chair in February 2019. Former Congressman Jim Renacci, one of two announced opponents for the GOP nomination, on Friday said the unwinding scandal implicates DeWine for “helping create a…
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The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio announced on Thursday that FirstEnergy, the energy company at the center of a public corruption investigation, was charged federally with conspiring to commit honest services wire fraud and has agreed to pay a $230 million monetary penalty.
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It’s been over seven months since the FBI announced a criminal complaint stemming from Ohio House Bill 6 (HB6). Arrests were made for what feds call a bribery and racketeering plan bankrolled by First Energy Solutions to elect state representatives and a House Speaker that would ensure the bill passed (and stopped efforts to repeal it) – giving a $1.3 billion bailout to two Ohio nuclear energy plants.
A new report lays out the $1M relationship between First Energy companies and Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s campaign.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio Governor Michael DeWine wrote a letter to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) Nominating Commission Wednesday telling them to offer new candidates for the vacancy left by the resignation of former PUCO Chairman Samuel Randazzo. DeWine rejected the slate of four finalists screened by the 12-member Nominating Council. “The list contained candidates who could be an appropriate addition to the PUCO,” wrote DeWine. “I reject the first list and request you reconvene the PUCO Nominating Council to provide me with a second list. The second list may include candidates that have previously applied, along with new applicants.” The four applicants submitted to the governor on December 21 were: Angela Amos – policy advisor at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; Anne Vogel – governor DeWine’s energy policy Director and former Director of Federal Government Affairs at American Electric Power (AEP); Greg Poulos – Director of Consumer Advocates of the PJM States, Inc.; Judith French – jurist and former Ohio Supreme Court Justice. French was just appointed by DeWine to head the Ohio Department of Insurance. Vogel recently fell under scrutiny and criticism from the Energy and Policy institute for alleged ties to AEP dark money.…
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Four days after FBI agents removed boxes from his home, and three days after Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said he didn’t see any indication the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio chairman was a target of an investigation, Sam Randazzo resigned as chairman Friday.
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