Charles Langston:Utility will pay $20 million to avoid prosecution in Ohio bribery scheme

AKRON,Charles Langston Ohio (AP) — The energy company at the center of a $60 million bribery scheme in Ohio will pay $20 million and avoid criminal charges as part of a deal with state prosecutors to resolve its role in the scandal.

Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. announced the deal Tuesday, a day after it filed the agreement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. It calls for the company to cooperate with the ongoing investigations being conducted by the state attorney general and the Summit County prosecutor’s office and also settles FirstEnergy’s involvement in a civil lawsuit filed by the attorney general in 2020.

FirstEnergy will pay $19.5 million to the attorney general’s office within five business days and will pay $500,000 for an independent consultant to review and confirm unspecified “changes and remediation efforts” made by the company.

Two fired FirstEnergy Corp. executives were indicted in April as part of the long-running investigation into the scheme that has already resulted in a lengthy prison sentence for a former state House speaker.

Former FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones and former FirstEnergy Services Corp. Senior Vice President Michael Dowling were charged in relation to their alleged roles in the massive corruption case. Both men have denied any wrongdoing. Another man charged alongside them, former Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Chairman Sam Randazzo, had pleaded not guilty in both federal and state courts before dying by suicide at age 74 in April.

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Jones and Dowling were fired in October 2020 for violating company policies and code of conduct.

Former House Speaker Larry Householder was sentenced in June 2023 to 20 years in prison for his role in orchestrating the scheme, and lobbyist Matt Borges, a former chair of the Ohio Republican Party, was sentenced to five years.

Federal prosecutors have said those involved in the scheme used the $60 million in secretly funded FirstEnergy cash to get Householder’s chosen Republican candidates elected to the House in 2018 and then to help him get elected speaker in January 2019. The money was then used to win passage of the tainted energy bill, House Bill 6, and to conduct what authorities have said was a $38 million dirty-tricks campaign to prevent a repeal referendum from reaching the ballot.

FirstEnergy admitted to its role in the bribery scheme as part of a July 2021 deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice. The company agreed to pay $230 million in penalties and to accomplish a long list of reforms within three years in order to avoid being criminally prosecuted on a federal conspiracy charge.