FirstEnergy to pay $230M in settlement in Ohio bribery case

Acting U.S. Attorney Vipal J. Patel, center, accompanied by FBI Special Agent in Charge Chris Hoffman, speaks during a news conference in Cincinnati, Thursday, July 22, 2021. Federal authorities say Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. would pay a $230 million penalty and fully cooperate as part of an agreement announced Thursday to settle federal charges against the company in a sweeping bribery scheme in Ohio. (AP Photo/Farnoush Amiri)

In this 2015 file photo, FirstEnergy Corp. then-President and CEO Charles "Chuck" Jones appears at the company's Akron, Ohio headquarters. Six top executives from the company have been fired, including Jones, since the alleged $60 million bribery case, involving ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and others. Federal authorities say the Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. has agreed to a settlement that calls for the company to fully cooperate and pay a $230 million fine as part of a sweeping bribery scheme. The dismissal of Jones, who initially denied any wrongdoing by the company, appeared to be tied to a $4.3 million payment that FirstEnergy made in January 2019, purportedly to end a longstanding consulting contract with a person soon to be appointed Ohio’s top utility regulator. (Phil Masturzo/Akron Beacon Journal via AP, File)

This undated file photo provided by the Ohio Governor's office shows former Public Utilities Commissioner of Ohio, Sam Randazzo, a seasoned utility lawyer and lobbyist, implicated in a bribery scheme to help win legislative passage of a $1 billion bailout for two Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp.'s nuclear power plants. Randazzo resigned from the commission in November after FBI agents searched his Columbus townhome, the same day FirstEnergy revealed the payment. (AP Photo/Ohio Governor's office via AP, File)

In this Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2019, file photo, Republican Ohio state Rep. Larry Householder sits at the head of a legislative session as Speaker of the House, in Columbus. Householder is charged in a $60 million bribery case, alleging he helped a $1 billion nuclear plant bailout. The 2020 arrests of Householder and four associates in connection with the scheme have rocked politics and business across Ohio. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

In this May 18, 2011, file photo, a worker drives a tractor through a tree farm in North Perry, Ohio, near the cooling towers of the Perry Nuclear Power Plant. A $60 million bribery case, involving ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and others, alleges to have helped prop up the Perry and Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Oak Harbor, Ohio. The 2020 arrests of Householder and four associates in connection with the scheme have rocked politics and business across Ohio. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta, File)

CINCINNATI (AP) — The energy giant at the center of a $60 million bribery scheme in Ohio admitted Thursday to new details of its role in the conspiracy as part of a settlement with federal prosecutors, including how it used dark money groups to fund the effort and paid a soon-to-be top utility regulator to write the legislation it got in exchange.

Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud under the deal, Acting U.S. Attorney Vipal J. Patel and FBI Special Agent in Charge Chris Hoffman announced at a press conference.

The charge would be dropped if the company complies over three years with a list of required actions in the deal, including paying a $230 million criminal penalty and continuing to fully cooperate with investigators.

The deal, signed off by FirstEnergy's president and CEO, comes in a scandal that has affected business and politics across Ohio since the arrests a year ago of then-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four associates. Government officials say Householder orchestrated a plan to accept corporate money for personal and political use in exchange for passing nuclear bailout legislation and scuttling an effort to repeal the bill.

“I hope that today’s announcement serves as a stern warning to other corporations and corporate executives who would sell their integrity to a public official, a group of public officials,” said Hoffman, calling the probe a historic public corruption investigation that “deserves historic remedies.”

Patel called the $230 million penalty probably the largest ever secured by his office.

FirstEnergy is one of the largest investor-owned electric systems in the nation with an annual revenue last year of $10.8 billion. Patel rejected suggestions that the sum was too lenient.

“So the principal here is try and come up with a number that stings, okay, but doesn’t annihilate,” Patel said, asserting that decimating the company's finances would hurt employees and customers and diminish FirstEnergy's incentive to cooperate.

Half of the $230 million penalty will go to the federal government and the other half will be paid to a program that benefits Ohio’s regulated utility customers, Patel said. FirstEnergy also has to forfeit about $6 million seized from the accounts of one of the dark money groups, Partners for Progress.

Under the agreement, FirstEnergy also must make public any new corporate payments it’s aware of that were intended to influence a public official and continue an internal makeover of its ethics practices. It also must issue a public statement describing that it intentionally used dark money groups to hide the scheme.

Prosecutors say the company used the groups “as a mechanism to conceal payments for the benefit of public officials and in return for official action.”

The settlement gives the public some justice, Ohio Consumers’ Counsel Bruce Weston said.

"But justice is also a longer road that requires state reforms to curb the utilities’ political influence that is costing Ohioans money on their utility bills,” he said.

New details in Thursday's court filings said Partners for Progress appeared to be independent while actually being controlled by FirstEnergy. FirstEnergy admitted to hand-picking the organization’s three leaders, who included Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s now-top lobbyist Dan McCarthy, and funneling $15 million in FirstEnergy cash through the nonprofit to Generation Now, which has also pleaded guilty in the case.

That represented a portion of the $60 million that FirstEnergy now admits it paid Generation Now, which it knew was also not independent but rather controlled by Householder, the statement of facts said.

That statement of facts filed Thursday also said Householder approached FirstEnergy officials in February 2020 to fund a ballot initiative to increase term limits for public officials. Had it passed, the measure potentially could have added up to 16 more years to the Perry County Republican’s House term. FirstEnergy paid Partners for Progress $2 million the next month, which the dark money group transferred to the Householder-controlled Generation Now.

Patel stopped short of saying whether any of the dark money group's activities detailed in the government's Thursday filings was illegal, though the statement prosecutors required FirstEnergy to issue was clearly intended to shine a light on the vast political influence that such entities are able to keep secret.

“They were a tool and they were used as part of a game,” Patel said. “It would be no different if you had written Partners for Progress on a kitchen brown paper bag and stuffed a bunch of cash in and slid it across the table.”

FirstEnergy Nonexecutive Board Chair Donald Misheff said in a statement that the settlement builds on steps the company already had under way, including to “significantly modify our approach to political engagement as we work to regain the trust of our stakeholders.”

Patel said the settlement does not preclude prosecutors from pursuing any individuals whose actions are described in detail in settlement documents, though without being named.

The company also paid a public official $4.3 million through his consulting company to further the company’s interests while he worked as Ohio’s top utility regulator, “relating to the passage of nuclear legislation,” according to the prosecutor's statement of facts. That official is known to be former utilities commission chair, Sam Randazzo.

Randazzo resigned from the commission in November after FBI agents searched his Columbus townhome and FirstEnergy revealed the payment to end a consulting agreement with his company.

In the last year, FirstEnergy has fired six high-ranking executives, including CEO Chuck Jones.

Messages seeking comment were left Thursday with Randazzo, Householder and DeWine, who appointed Randazzo to the utilities commission. Neither Randazzo nor Jones have been charged criminally.

In a statement Thursday, FirstEnergy President and CEO Steven Strah said, “Moving forward, we are intently focused on fostering a strong culture of compliance and ethics, starting at the top, and ensuring we have robust processes in place to prevent the type of misconduct that occurred in the past.”

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Gillispie reported from Cleveland and Carr Smyth reported from Columbus. Farnoush Amiri is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.