AKRON, Ohio — An Ohio jury started deliberations Tuesday to decide whether two former FirstEnergy Corporation leaders are guilty of corruption in a massive bribery scandal involving $60 million that led to a profitable nuclear plant rescue package.
Chuck Jones, the company’s former chief executive, and Michael Dowling, a former senior vice president, are facing corruption, bribery, conspiracy and aggravated theft charges. Prosecutors allege they paid $4.3 million to Sam Randazzo, who later became Ohio’s top utility regulator and helped craft the bailout legislation called House Bill 6 while providing other benefits to the company. Both defendants have entered not guilty pleas.
Prosecutors spent two days making their final case, emphasizing that Jones and Dowling deliberately bought off Randazzo, who was destined to chair the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, to serve their own interests. They argued that obtaining Randazzo’s assistance in securing valuable legislative and regulatory benefits improved the Akron utility company’s financial performance, which directly boosted Jones and Dowling’s pay.
“They rigged a process that was supposed to be fair for everyone. Their corruption here was using power, influence and money for personal and corporate greed,” Special Assistant Attorney General Matthew Meyer told jurors Monday. “By cleverly structuring the timing and labels of their payoff to Sam Randazzo, these two captains of industry behaved like they were untouchable.”
Defense lawyers dismissed this argument as absurd, maintaining their stance that the money given to Randazzo in early January 2019, before he became a candidate for the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, was a legitimate legal settlement.
“Chuck Jones did not bribe Sam Randazzo,” Jones’ attorney Carole Rendon told jurors on Tuesday. “He made a legitimate business decision to terminate a settlement agreement that was for Sam Randazzo’s clients, the members of IEU-Ohio.” Industrial Energy Users-Ohio was one of Randazzo’s businesses.
Prosecutors presented text messages between the former executives and their discussions about how to approach then-Governor-elect Mike DeWine and then-Lieutenant Governor-elect Jon Husted, now a U.S. senator who testified during the trial. Evidence from post-election meetings was also introduced to support prosecutors’ claims that the two men had an elaborate scheme to enrich themselves at Ohioans’ expense.
Steven Grimes, representing Dowling, argued Monday that the state didn’t meet the burden of proving guilt beyond reasonable doubt. He contended that prosecutors’ arguments relied heavily on assumptions that Dowling planned for the $4.3 million to reach Randazzo, which he said the evidence contradicts.
Grimes accused prosecutors of selectively choosing events from years past to create a narrative that Dowling conspired with Randazzo and Jones, but said the evidence didn’t definitively prove this occurred.
“I’ve been fighting for Mike for a long time. And this is it. I’m done fighting. I get to turn it over to now,” he told jurors. “You guys are the safeguards. You’re the constitutional protection that Mike has. You’re what he’s got. And so when you go back there in your jury room, please demand the details. Don’t compromise. Listen. Respect your fellow jurors. Talk it out. But don’t accept these assumptions. Keep up the fight for Mike. Send him home.”
FirstEnergy acknowledged in a 2021 nonprosecution agreement that it funded the $60 million scheme where former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder installed allies, gained control, passed the nuclear bailout legislation, and then protected it from a citizen referendum through underhanded tactics.
Householder received a racketeering conviction along with lobbyist and former Ohio Republican Party chair Matt Borges in 2023. The jury gave Householder 20 years for leading the scheme while Borges received five years. Two additional political operatives admitted guilt for their participation, and a dark money organization acknowledged in court that it funneled the money. Neil Clark, a fourth Householder associate charged in the scheme and influential Statehouse lobbyist, took his own life in 2021.
Randazzo died by suicide in 2024 after entering not guilty pleas to numerous state and federal charges. Summit County Common Pleas Judge Susan Baker Ross, who has presided over the Jones and Dowling case for six weeks in Akron, kept some of the more disturbing details that emerged over the past five years from the jury.
