Indicted former Ohio utility chair Sam Randazzo reported dead by suicide

 Former Public Utilities of Ohio Chair Sam Randazzo at court. (Photo by WEWS.)

BY: MARTY SCHLADEN – Ohio Capital Journal

Sam Randazzo, Gov. Mike DeWine’s first pick to chair the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, has died by suicide, the Columbus Dispatch is reporting.

Randazzo’s body was found Tuesday in a Franklin County warehouse he owned, the paper reported. A spokesman for Franklin County Coroner Nathaniel Overmire couldn’t immediately be reached.

Randazzo — a 74-year-old energy consultant turned regulator — was charged both in state and federal court over his role in a massive utility scandal that broke in July 2020, along with other alleged misdeeds. In the bribery scandal, Akron-based FirstEnergy paid more than $60 million in bribes between 2017 and 2020 in exchange for a $1.3 billion ratepayer bailout.

DeWine picked Randazzo to be the state’s top regulator after a decade of shady dealings between Randazzo and FirstEnergy, his state indictment says. They include secretly being a paid consultant for FirstEnergy while also serving as general counsel to industrial energy users who were trying to get a better deal from FirstEnergy, the document says.

Randazzo also secretly skimmed millions from settlements FirstEnergy paid the big users to get them to go along with rate hikes for everybody else, the indictment says.

Just before DeWine nominated Randazzo to chair the PUCO in early 2019, FirstEnergy’s top executives paid him $4.3 million — a payment that FirstEnergy later conceded was a bribe.

DeWine’s chief of staff reportedly knew about the payment before Randazzo was nominated, but it’s unclear how much she, DeWine, and others in the administration knew about the more than $10 million Randazzo was paid by FirstEnergy over the years. She was slated to testify at the former regulator’s state trial.

As PUCO chairman, Randazzo helped draft the bailout legislation and did a number of other lucrative favors for FirstEnergy, court documents and testimony have shown.

After a lengthy federal trial last year, former House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in the scandal. Former Ohio GOP Chairman Matt Borges was sentenced to five years for his.

Two others pleaded guilty and await sentencing. Another defendant, lobbyist Neil Clark, died by suicide.