AKRON, Ohio -- Former FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones and chief lobbyist Mike Dowling, along with the state’s former chief utilities regulator Sam Randazzo, may not leave the state without a judge’s permission as they fight corruption-related charges.
The three are accused of orchestrating a yearslong scheme to commandeer the state’s utility regulation process to benefit the Akron-based power company and line their own pockets. They made their first appearance in court Tuesday, days after a grand jury indicted them on more than two dozen charges, including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, grand theft, bribery and money laundering.
The men pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Summit County Common Pleas Court Judge Susan Baker Ross continued the bonds that she had set for the men on Monday. All three were released from Summit County Jail after each posted 10% of $100,000 bond.
Ross also ordered the men to wear ankle monitors over the objections of their attorneys, who argued that they posed no risk of flight.
Randazzo’s attorney, Richard Blake, said it would be “downright mean” to make Randazzo continue to wear an ankle monitor.
Ross rejected a request from Assistant Ohio Attorney General Matthew Meyer to make Jones and Dowling put up multiple pieces of property as collateral to keep them from fleeing prosecution. He noted that, if convicted, the men could spend the rest of their lives in prison.
Meyer said the state was particularly concerned that Jones, who moved to Naples, Florida, after he received a $53 million payout from FirstEnergy in 2020, could flee via “a short, 100-mile boat ride” to Cuba, where the United States does not have an extradition treaty.
Jones is receiving treatment at a Cleveland Clinic location in Florida for an undisclosed medical condition, and his attorney, Carole Rendon, called it “inappropriate” to accuse Jones of being a flight risk.
Ross ordered Jones to try to transfer his treatment to Cleveland Clinic in Northeast Ohio. She said she would be open to revisiting her order to keep the men on GPS monitoring at a later date. Dowling’s attorney, John McCaffrey, said his client is rooted in Massillon with his family and is not a threat to flee.
Meyer said that prosecutors have more than 100,000 documents they plan to use as evidence against the three men.
Ross set a pre-trial for April 19. It will be held via Zoom.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s office announced the indictment Monday. A grand jury filed it under seal on Friday, and Yost’s office said the men had agreed to surrender Monday morning but failed to do so. They later appeared at the Summit County Jail.
The charges come months after former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and lobbyist Matthew Borges were sentenced to prison for their roles in the massive scandal surrounding the passage of House Bill 6. The bill provided a $1.3 billion bailout of two nuclear plants owned by a FirstEnergy subsidiary.
In exchange, the company made more than $60 million in payments to Householder and a team of allies, according to court records. The company has admitted in court filings that the payments were bribes.
Householder was sentenced to 20 years in prison last year after a federal jury found him guilty of racketeering. Borges, who was also convicted at the trial, was sentenced to five years.
In the state charges filed Friday, prosecutors said the scheme between Jones, Dowling and Randazzo was born in 2011. At the time, Randazzo was a private lawyer for the Industrial Energy Users of Ohio, a trade group made up of largescale energy buyers who wanted to leverage their market-share power to push FirstEnergy to lower its rates.
Prosecutors say Jones and Dowling paid Randazzo millions of dollars as he pushed the trade group to settle its case against FirstEnergy. Randazzo then set up shell companies to funnel settlement money meant for the group into his own accounts, according to the indictment.
Dowling and Jones lobbied Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine in January 2019 to tap Randazzo as the chair of PUCO, the powerful state public utilities regulator. Hours after meeting with DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, Dowling and Jones met with Randazzo and agreed to pay him $4.3 million for “consulting fees” that the company had received no invoices for and for which Randazzo had done no work, according to the indictment.
Randazzo applied for the PUCO job two weeks later. DeWine announced in February 2019 that he was giving the job to Randazzo.
As PUCO chair, Randazzo helped kill a scheduled 2024 rate evaluation of FirstEnergy that the company feared would force it to reduce its rates.
FirstEnergy fired Jones and Dowling in the fall of 2020 after a company investigation revealed what turned out to be the payment to Randazzo. Randazzo resigned about a month later after the FBI raided his home.
Randazzo was charged in U.S. District Court in Columbus in December on charges tied to the $4.3 million bribery payment. He has pleaded not guilty and the case is pending. Jones and Dowling have not been charged federally, though prosecutors have said the investigation continues.