COLUMBUS, Ohio — The whistleblower in the largest corruption scandal in Ohio history is cheering the newly announced felony charges against three of the major players accused of selling out the Statehouse.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced in a press conference Monday that three people had been charged by the state in connection to the House Bill 6 scandal.
RELATED: 2 former FirstEnergy executives, former state utility regulator charged in HB6 bribery scandal
Former FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones, former FirstEnergy Senior Vice President Michael Dowling and former chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Sam Randazzo have been charged with a "combined 27 counts of felony violations, including engaging in a corrupt activity, all related to their joint enterprise to hijack Ohio’s regulatory structure for the benefit of First Energy Corporation and for themselves."
“This indictment is about more than one piece of legislation,” Yost said. “It is about the hostile capture of a significant portion of Ohio's state government by deception, betrayal and dishonesty."
Fast facts
Back in 2019, former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder took a $61 million bribe in exchange for legislation to give FirstEnergy a $1 billion bailout, named H.B. 6, all at the expense of the taxpayers.
The scheme was revealed in three main ways — two separate whistleblowers and a phone wiretap.
Fast forwarding to March 2023, a jury found that Householder and former GOP leader Matt Borges, beyond a reasonable doubt, participated in the largest public corruption case in state history, a racketeering scheme that left four men guilty and another dead by suicide.
In late June that year, federal judge Timothy Black sentenced Householder to 20 years in prison. Borges got 5 years. The two surviving defendants took plea agreements early on, helping the FBI, and are still awaiting their sentencing. The feds are asking for 0-6 months for them.
Until 2024, only federal indictments had been handed out.
H.B. 6 mainly benefited FirstEnergy's struggling nuclear power plants, but those provisions were later repealed. There are aspects of the bill still in place, though.
The Ohio Valley Electric Corporation (OVEC) got a handout from the scheme. It expanded a bailout of the OVEC plants and required Ohioans to pay for two 1950s-era coal plants— one in the Southern area of the state and the other in Indiana. The main beneficiaries of this are American Electric Power Company (AEP), Duke Energy and AES Ohio.
Despite this scandal becoming public years ago, ethics laws in the state have not changed to prevent schemes like this from happening.
There are numerous bipartisan efforts to repeal H.B. 6 totally and to put forward ethics laws. None are going anywhere, it seems.
Now
Yost was joined by Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh and Sheriff Kandy Fatheree for the announcement Monday.
"The crimes committed by these individuals impacted the pocketbooks of every hard working Ohioan and further shook our faith in the institutions and organizations that we count on to represent us and to provide us with essential services," Fatheree said. "Today, we take another important step in ensuring that justice is served for these crimes and that those who took advantage of the public's trust are held accountable."
FirstEnergy as a company has already admitted to bribing public officials in Ohio, including a $4.3 million bribe to Randazzo. Jones and Dowling allegedly paid this to him.
The two former executives face a dozen charges each, including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, bribery and fraud.
Click here to read each of their specific charges.
Randazzo has already been charged with federal racketeering, which he pleaded not guilty to in December. The state added 22 felony counts, including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, bribery and money laundering.
The Sustainability Funding Alliance of Ohio and IEU-Ohio Administration Company are also named in the filing. Randazzo controlled each of them, and they were allegedly shell companies created to further his criminal activity.
And while Monday was probably not the best day for Randazzo, Jones and Dowling, it was a great day for whistleblower Tyler Fehrman.
Fehrman is the Republican operative-turned-FBI informant who is credited with exposing this mass public corruption at the Statehouse — and he is cheering the AG and Summit County for these arrests.
"These guys deserve to have everything taken away from them," Fehrman said. "They deserve it."
Borges attempted to bribe Fehrman, and threatened him, to be a part of the scandal — even at one point telling him that if he snitches, Borges would "blow up his house."
Too bad for Borges, but that conversation was actually set up and recorded by the feds. Instead of staying quiet, Fehrman testified, wowing jurors — as reported by WCPO's sister station WEWS — and helping to return guilty verdicts in the federal trial.
Fehrman ended up having to change careers and flee the state due to fears of retaliation — and because he was ostracized — but now he gets to watch as the scheme continues to unravel.
"You can hide your actions in the dark for a little bit," he said. "But the sun always rises and the truth always comes out."
The sun is rising on more people who helped upend his life.
"Every time one of these guys gets indicted, especially the people that made it possible for Matt and Larry to have the opportunity to do what they did to me — to see them get in trouble, it's extremely vindicating," he said.
He agreed with Yost's statement that there can be no justice without holding the check writers and the masterminds accountable.
Case Western Reserve University law professor Mike Benza believes these charges are going to be hard to fight. When asked the best possible scenario for them, other than pleading guilty, he said their best bet could be to argue this is politics as usual.
"It seems that the focus from the defense side is going to be much like the focus from Householder and Borges — this is just how things get done in Columbus," Benza said. "This is just the normal sausage-making of public policy and it may not be pretty and you may not like it, but this is the reality and it doesn't equal corruption."
Clearly, that wasn't a winning argument in federal court, but they could try it in state.
Part of the reason why it may have worked so poorly in Black's courtroom is because Householder went against the advice of the vast majority of criminal defense attorneys and decided to testify in his defense.
The now-convicted felon fell into the FBI's trap and, embarrassingly, lied on the stand. He seemed to not understand that the feds had recordings of him admitting to the crimes. His face would turn more and more red as Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Glatfelter played back the tapes.
Also not helpful: he used the bribe money to put himself and his allies into power, demolishing and threatening anyone in his path, as well as paying off credit card debt and renovations to his home in Florida.
That being said – the future doesn't look good for any of the defendants.
"What do you think that this means for Randazzo, Jones and Dowling?" Statehouse reporter Morgan Trau asked Benza.
"Randazzo is probably going to be looking at dying in prison," Benza responded. "Jones and Dowling are probably in that same boat."
Ferhman is hoping for more indictments, including high-profile names.
"The clock is ticking for the other people that were involved," Fehrman said.
He named Gov. Mike DeWine Lt. Gov. Jon Husted as people of interest for him.
DeWine has been complying with a subpoena he received in a civil case connected to the scandal, he said.
FirstEnergy investors are suing for being negatively impacted financially by the scandal. They have subpoenaed documents from DeWine, and they’re scheduling a sworn deposition with Husted.
In a one-on-one interview with the governor, Trau asked if he was nervous about the scandal, or, more importantly — if was he worried for Husted. DeWine said no to both.
Randazzo has been named as the mastermind behind H.B. 6, due to him being one of the creators of it — according to the feds. But DeWine was how he came into power.
"Do you regret appointing Sam Randazzo to the PUCO?" Trau asked.
"Oh, look, if I knew what I know now, if I knew that — I certainly would not have appointed Sam Randazzo to that position," DeWine responded.
DeWine said he was the best person for the job, not knowing that Randazzo was FirstEnergy’s handpicked man.
“While our office was not privy to the indictment and have not yet reviewed it, the indictment alleges very serious acts," DeWine's spokesperson Dan Tierney said Monday afternoon. "Our office has full faith in the criminal justice system to adjudicate these serious allegations in an appropriate manner.”
Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on Twitter and Facebook.
