Former House Speaker Larry Householder has again been indicted on charges related to his actions in a massive bribery and money laundering scandal.
The Glenford Republican is already serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison after being convicted last March of racketeering in a scheme in which Akron-based FirstEnergy paid more than $60 million to purchase a $1.3 billion, ratepayer-financed bailout.
The state charges concern some conduct Householder engaged in after he was arrested in July 2020. They also concern debts and other items that Householder admitted during his federal trial that he didn’t report to the Joint Legislative Ethics Commission as required.
The former speaker faces maximum sentences of from three to eight years on each of the 10 state charges from the Cuyahoga grand jury. And importantly, if he’s convicted of one of the counts — theft in office — he’s permanently disqualified from holding public office.
In a video accompanying the announcement of the indictment, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost noted that Householder has served two different stints as speaker, and that if he’s successful in appealing his federal conviction, “he might well try for a third bite at the apple.”
Five of the 10 state counts Householder faces stem from his use of campaign funds to pay lawyers after his July 2020 arrest. In the video in which Yost appeared, Deputy Attorney General Carol O’Brien said Householder knew that was illegal when he did it.
Several other counts relate to Householder “not reporting significant credit card debts going back to at least 2016, as well as gifts from lobbyists and significant loans from individuals.”
Also indicted was Sam Randazzo, Gov. Mike DeWine’s pick to be Ohio’s top utility regulator. Jones and Dowling paid Randazzo $4.3 million mere weeks before DeWine nominated him to the commission in February 2019.
DeWine’s chief of staff, Laurel Dawson, knew of the payment, but an administration spokesman said she didn’t tell the governor until after the FBI searched Randazzo’s Columbus condo in 2020.
Randazzo was charged by federal authorities in relation to his role in the scandal in December.
Despite all the prosecutions and allegations of wrongdoing, the bailout law, House Bill 6, is still on the books. As a result, ratepayers have ponied up nearly a quarter-billion dollars to prop up two aging coal plants.
Despite the fact that Ohio ratepayers are shouldering that burden, one of the plants isn’t even in Ohio, but in Indiana instead.
MARTY SCHLADEN
Marty Schladen has been a reporter for decades, working in Indiana, Texas and other places before returning to his native Ohio to work at The Columbus Dispatch in 2017. He’s won state and national journalism awards for investigations into utility regulation, public corruption, the environment, prescription drug spending and other matters.
Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
From left to right: Former PUCO Chair Sam Randazzo, former FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones, former FirstEnergy VP Michael Dowling. (Mugshots from the Summit County Sheriff’s Office. Graphic by WEWS.)
Ohio law enforcement authorities on Monday filed numerous felony charges against two former First Energy executives and a former top utility regulator in what has been called the biggest bribery and money-laundering scandal in Ohio history.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced scores of felony charges against a former regulator who also has been charged federally, and against two people who haven’t — former top executives for Akron-based FirstEnergy whom the company admitted paid more than $60 million in bribes between 2016 and 2020 in exchange for a $1.3 billion ratepayer bailout.
Charged were Sam Randazzo, former chairman of the Public Utilities Commission. Already facing felony charges in federal court, the state indictment charges him with 22 more, including grand theft, bribery, and money laundering. The indictment accuses him of taking bribes from FirstEnergy from 2010 until just before he became chairman of the commission in 2019.
Also charged were former FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones and Vice President Michael Dowling. Between them, they face 22 felony charges similar to those faced by Randazzo.
“This indictment is about more than one piece of legislation,” Yost said Monday. “It is about the hostile capture of a significant portion of Ohio’s state government by deception, betrayal, and dishonesty.”
The state charges that were announced Monday didn’t deal with much of the activity addressed in the federal case. They instead focused on the relationship between Jones, Dowling, and Randazzo between 2010 and early 2019, when they paid him $4.33 million just as he was becoming the state’s top utility regulator.
The House Bill 6 scandal
Back in 2019, former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder took $61 million in bribes in exchange for legislation to give FirstEnergy a $1 billion bailout, named House Bill 6, all at the expense of the ratepayers.
The scheme was revealed in three main ways — two separate whistleblowers and a phone wiretap.
In March 2023, a jury found Householder and former Ohio Republican Party leader Matt Borges guilty beyond a reasonable doubt for their involvement in the 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 Monday, only federal indictments had been handed out.
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 HB 6 totally and to put forward ethics laws. None are going anywhere, it seems.
Monday’s indictments
AG 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 in a deferred prosecution agreement to bribing public officials in Ohio, including a $4.3 million bribe to Randazzo. Jones and Dowling allegedly paid this to him.
Randazzo pleaded not guilty to the federal charges against him in December.
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.
Reactions
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.”
That conversation was actually set up and recorded by the feds. Instead of staying quiet, Fehrman testified, helping the jury 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,” Fehrman said Monday. “But the sun always rises and the truth always comes out. 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 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.
Part of the reason why it may have worked so poorly in Black’s federal 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 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.
Benza believes Randazzo, Jones, and Dowling are facing difficult days ahead.
“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, DeWine was 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 HB 6, due to him being one of the creators of it — according to the feds. But DeWine was how he came into power.
DeWine was asked in the same interview if he regretted naming Randazzo the state’s top utility regulator.
“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, claiming that he wasn’t aware 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.”
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MARTY SCHLADEN
Marty Schladen has been a reporter for decades, working in Indiana, Texas and other places before returning to his native Ohio to work at The Columbus Dispatch in 2017. He’s won state and national journalism awards for investigations into utility regulation, public corruption, the environment, prescription drug spending and other matters. MORE FROM AUTHOR
MORGAN TRAU
Morgan Trau is a political reporter and multimedia journalist based out of the WEWS Columbus Bureau. A graduate of Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Trau has previously worked as an investigative, political and fact-checking reporter in Grand Rapids, Mich. at WZZM-TV; a reporter and MMJ in Spokane, Wash. at KREM-TV and has interned at 60 Minutes and worked for CBS Interactive and PBS NewsHour. MORE FROM AUTHOR
Five have been charged and four have been convicted in a massive bribery and money-laundering scandal, but there were more signs this week that the federal criminal investigation is continuing.
In court documents filed in a separate case on Monday, a special master said that a major player in the conspiracy — Akron-based FirstEnergy — continues to cooperate with federal prosecutors. The same documents order the major beneficiary of the conspiracy, a former FirstEnergy subsidiary, to do more to cooperate in a federal class-action suit.
Former House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford, and former GOP Chairman Matt Borges in June were respectively sentenced to 20 and five years in federal prison for their roles in the conspiracy. Two others have pleaded guilty and await sentencing, while a third who was charged died by suicide.
In the conspiracy, FirstEnergy and its then-subsidiary paid more than $60 million from 2017 to 2019 to make Householder speaker so he could pass and protect a $1.3 billion bailout. Of that sum, the vast majority was intended to prop up two nuclear plants owned by the subsidiary, then called FirstEnergy Solutions.
Over the course of a six-week trial in Cincinnati early this year, prosecutors put on evidence that FirstEnergy found itself in a precarious state because its heavy investments in coal and nuclear-powered generation were being undercut by cheap natural gas. Top executives with the company — including then-CEO Chuck Jones and Vice President Michael Dowling — desperately sought a ratepayer bailout to prop up the nuclear plants so they could spin them off and get most of the liability associated with closing and cleaning them up off their books.
In 2019, as Householder was shepherding the bailout through the legislature, FirstEnergy Solutions was in bankruptcy and emerged in February 2020. It had a new name, Energy Harbor, and it was no longer a subsidiary of FirstEnergy.
Five months later, the FBI arrested Householder and the others. Then large pension and investment funds sued FirstEnergy, saying the reckless, undisclosed conduct of its top executives caused investors to lose billions when that conduct hit the public fan.
FirstEnergy signed a deferred prosecution agreement admitting wrongdoing and agreeing to pay a $230 million penalty to the government. But that didn’t get it off the hook in the multiple civil suits it’s faced, including the class action filed in the Southern District of Ohio by large investors.
As part of the suit, those investors have been battling FirstEnergy for communications and other information that might implicate officials other than Jones and Dowling, who were fired.
They’re also battling Sam Randazzo. He isn’t named in the suit, but FirstEnergy said he took a $4.3 million bribe from Jones and Dowling just as Gov. Mike DeWine nominated Randazzo to chair the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio at the beginning of 2019. The class-action plaintiffs say Randazzo might be sitting on text messages and other communications relevant to the conspiracy.
Jones, Dowling and Randazzo deny criminal wrongdoing in the scandal, but U.S. Attorney Kenneth L. Parker in June said that the investigation was continuing. On Monday, Special Master Shawn Judge also said in a court filing that the investigation continues — and that FirstEnergy is cooperating.
“During this jury trial, the government highlighted Jones’s and Dowling’s purported relationships with Householder and involvement in the conspiracy,” Judge wrote, referring to the criminal trial earlier this year. “And multiple representations before the Court suggest that FirstEnergy’s cooperation with government investigations is ongoing.”
Judge is helping to referee the numerous discovery disputes in the class-action case. In this instance, he ordered Energy Harbor to provide almost everything the FirstEnergy investors wanted.
As a now-independent company, Energy Harbor said it’s not a defendant in the civil case, so it shouldn’t be put to the trouble and expense to provide the information the pension and investment funds are demanding.
But Judge noted that while it was still a FirstEnergy subsidiary, the company “contributed $43 million of the $60 million paid to Householder and his affiliates in exchange for the official action of passing (the bailout law) and defending it from a repeal referendum.”
In addition, Judge wrote, the subsidiary’s lobbyist, Juan Cespedes, helped direct some of those funds and pleaded guilty to his role in the racketeering conspiracy.
Judge then ordered Energy Harbor to provide the plaintiffs with the information they requested, but reduced the time period the required documents span by several months.
MARTY SCHLADEN
Marty Schladen has been a reporter for decades, working in Indiana, Texas and other places before returning to his native Ohio to work at The Columbus Dispatch in 2017. He’s won state and national journalism awards for investigations into utility regulation, public corruption, the environment, prescription drug spending and other matters.
Even as its former top executives await possible criminal charges for gouging ratepayers, Akron-based FirstEnergy is seeking a $1.4 billion rate increase. The state’s consumer watchdog objects, saying the company’s profits are higher than normal and that it should use a more thorough process to prove that it really needs the money.
The electric utility is seeking the increase as part of its “electric security plan” — a package of investments aimed at improving reliability and efficiency.
“Our plan will build on the significant enhancements we’ve made to reinforce the grid against progressively stronger storms,” a statement on the FirstEnergy website quotes Patricia Mullin, acting president of FirstEnergy’s Ohio operations, as saying. “We’re committed to making the right investments to ensure a modern, more reliable grid while also keeping electric bills affordable, and we will continue working with interested stakeholders to ensure an open and thorough review of our proposal.”
However, the state’s consumer watchdog, the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, is objecting to the proposal on several grounds. For example, OCC contends that FirstEnergy is already highly profitable and shouldn’t need more of the ratepayers money.
That’s not true, FirstEnergy spokeswoman Lauren Siburkis said in an email.
“Our most recently disclosed return on equity in Ohio (shared during the third quarter earnings call) shows that to be 6.2%, which is much lower than the recently authorized returns in Ohio of 9.5% to 10%,” she said.
However, the company, which operates in several states, appears to be doing quite well overall. In its third-quarter financial disclosure, the company reported that so far this year its per share earnings are up 17% over last year.
OCC, the consumer watchdog, also objects to the mechanism through which FirstEnergy is seeking the rate hike. It’s asking the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to approve “riders” in a process that isn’t as rigorous as a full “rate case.” That’s when regulators and others scrutinize many aspects of a utility’s operations and its books to ensure they’re not unfairly profiting from the monopolies that regulators grant them.
FirstEnergy has abused the rider process in the past. As part of a huge bribery and money-laundering scandal, the company in 2019 received a “decoupling rider” that allowed the company to bill customers tens of millions to cover shortfalls in revenue.
Chuck Jones, then the company’s CEO, boasted to investors that the rider made the company “somewhat recession-proof.” The rider was repealed after FirstEnergy admitted wrongdoing in a deferred prosecution agreement.
OCC is arguing that going through a full rate case is the best way to prevent mischief and inefficiency.
“Reliance on an excessive number of trackers, riders and other special regulatory mechanisms decreases a utility’s incentive to manage all aspects of its business in a cost-effective manner,” regulatory auditing expert Greg Meyer said in testimony to the regulatory commission that OCC sent to reporters last week. “FirstEnergy seems to ignore the fact that under its proposed (electric security plan), FirstEnergy’s consumers will be required to pay for energy-efficiency programs, demand-response programs and the multiple riders, in between base rate cases. These charges will add costs to the bills of FirstEnergy’s consumers without a review of all the relevant factors of FirstEnergy’s operations.”
Asked why FirstEnergy didn’t seek the rate hike as part of a full rate case, Siburkis seemed to say FirstEnergy couldn’t wait six months, when one is scheduled.
“The settlement we reached in 2021, which received the PUCO’s approval and delivered $306 million in customer benefits, explicitly requires us to submit the rate case in May 2024, no sooner and no later,” she said.
That settlement was a deferred prosecution agreement in which FirstEnergy ponied up $230 million in fines and said that in addition to other bad acts, Jones and former Vice President Michael Dowling bribed Sam Randazzo — Gov. Mike DeWine’s first appointment to chair the PUCO — $4.3 million in exchange for regulatory and other favors.
Jones and Dowling were fired and Randazzo resigned. All three men deny wrongdoing, but in court filings, they have acknowledged that federal law enforcement is investigating their conduct.
Four already have been convicted over their participation in the scandal. Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder in June was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for shepherding the corrupt utility bailout through the legislature. Former state GOP Chairman Matt Borges was sentenced to five years for playing a lesser role, and two others have pleaded guilty and await sentencing.
For six weeks early this year, federal prosecutors put on a mountain of evidence in a Cincinnati courtroom about how FirstEnergy spent more than $60 million helping Householder bribe and bully through a $1.3 billion utility bailout that benefitted that company far more than any other utility.
Now it’s asking for almost the same amount without going through the most rigorous regulatory scrutiny. Asked why ratepayers should trust FirstEnergy’s claims, Siburkis said the company has turned the page on its ugly recent past.
“FirstEnergy has accepted responsibility for its actions related to House Bill 6 and has taken significant steps to put past issues behind us,” she said. “Today, we are a different, stronger company with a sound strategy and focused on a bright future.”
MARTY SCHLADEN
Marty Schladen has been a reporter for decades, working in Indiana, Texas and other places before returning to his native Ohio to work at The Columbus Dispatch in 2017. He’s won state and national journalism awards for investigations into utility regulation, public corruption, the environment, prescription drug spending and other matters.
Judges denied two delays in recent days that would have been key to a bribery and money laundering scandal that took place in Ohio between 2017 to 2020. Lawyers in one suit called it “one of the largest corruption and bribery schemes in U.S. history.”
Denial of a delay in one court case means that a player will still be sentenced late next month.
In denying the other, the judge in that case agreed with two former FirstEnergy executives who said federal law enforcement has them in its crosshairs. But she ordered that they be questioned under oath anyway.
One of those denied was former Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges, who on March 9 was convicted of racketeering along with former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford. Two others who were also charged in 2020 pleaded guilty and a third died by suicide.
Householder directed the effort in 2018 to elect friendly representatives who would make him speaker. He led the 2019 legislative fight to pass the bailout. And he engineered the nasty, dishonest battle to beat back an attempted repeal.
Borges’ role was much more limited. He acted as a go-between with statewide officials such as Attorney General Dave Yost and Secretary of State Frank LaRose — and he paid a worker on the repeal campaign $15,000 as the worker shared inside information about its likelihood of success.
Even though Householder’s role in the scandal was much bigger than that of Borges, each faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison on the one count of racketeering of which he was convicted. Householder is scheduled to be sentenced in the Potter Stewart U.S. Courthouse in Cincinnati on June 29. Borges was scheduled for sentencing the next day.
But after his conviction, Borges asked the court for extra time to file post-trial motions asking that his conviction be thrown out. U.S. District Judge Timothy Black agreed, giving him until April 24.
Borges didn’t file anything by that deadline. But on May 15, Borges again asked permission to file post-trial motions. He argued that his conviction was on much shakier ground in light of two decisions handed down on May 11 by the U.S. Supreme Court: Ciminelli vs. United States and Percoco vs. United States.
Judge Black, however, on Monday agreed with Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Glatfelter that the legal theories those decisions dealt with were “neither charged, nor argued, nor instructed” in Borges’ case. Black added that it’s important to keep the case moving.
“Finally, this case has been litigated, tried, and a verdict returned. Defendant Borges is now scheduled for sentencing on June 30, 2023. Disrupting the schedule would needlessly undermine the interests in judicial efficiency and finality,” the judge wrote.
Former FirstEnergy CEO Charles “Chuck” Jones. Source: FirstEnergy, via Flickr
Similarly, a separate federal judge declined to postpone sworn depositions of the two former FirstEnergy executives who directed more than $60 million in corporate cash to Householder-controlled dark money groups that fueled the scandal. She did so even as she acknowledged that former CEO Chuck Jones and former Vice President Michael Dowling “fear they are next in line for indictment” and don’t want to incriminate themselves in their depositions.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Kimberly Jolson is helping to manage the administration of a massive class-action suit against FirstEnergy, Jones and Dowling over the Householder scandal. Investors say the recklessness of the scheme cost them big — especially when it came to light and stock values plummeted.
Alleging federal securities fraud, lawyers for pension funds and other investors have said in court filings, “FirstEnergy and its most senior executives bankrolled one of the largest corruption and bribery schemes in U.S. history.”
Last Friday, Jolson also rejected attempts by Jones and Dowling — the former FirstEnergy executives — to delay sworn depositions to September or even later. The depositions had been scheduled for this week and next, but plaintiffs and defendants agreed to a short delay while Jolson considered the request.
In asking to hold off until Sept. 8, Jones and Dowling said that having to give a deposition under oath put them in a position in which they were damned if they did, and damned if they didn’t.
Answering questions could put them in criminal jeopardy, but if they took the Fifth, the jury in the class-action case is free to conclude they have something bad to hide, Jones and Dowling argued. They added that it’s certain that the feds are coming after them.
“Although the defendants in (the Householder trial) have been found guilty (but are yet to be sentenced) and charges have not yet been brought against Jones or Dowling, there can be no doubt that the government’s investigation into Jones and Dowling remains ongoing,” their motion said.
Judge Jolson replied that she had to weigh those concerns against those of FirstEnergy investors, who already have been fighting the case for nearly three years.
Jones and Dowling “say the stay is temporary, (but) their grounds supporting the stay could extend for months or even years,” Jolson wrote. “Presently, they request that the depositions be delayed until at least September 8, 2023. (Jones and Dowling) have chosen this date because it is the first date on which investigations and proceedings conducted by PUCO might resume—after a third six-month stay of those proceedings was recently granted at the request of” federal prosecutors.
The judge added it didn’t help the former executives’ argument that they haven’t been indicted yet because waiting until that question is resolved is a recipe for further delay.
Jolson said she understood the executives’ dilemma.
“In sum, there is substantial overlap between the issues in this case and the criminal investigation surrounding the Householder case,” she wrote. “And (Jones and Dowling) are faced with legitimate concerns regarding the invocation of their Fifth Amendment rights.”
Jolson added, however, that granting a delay would privilege the former executives who funded the corrupt bailout scheme over the aggrieved investors and the public.
“A stay of these key depositions at this moment — with no clear end in sight — would throw a wrench into the works of discovery and impede or even halt the litigation,” she wrote. “It would privilege the interests of (Jones and Dowling) above those of Plaintiffs, the public (whose interests are particularly implicated given that this is a class action), and the Court.”
MARTY SCHLADEN
Marty Schladen has been a reporter for decades, working in Indiana, Texas and other places before returning to his native Ohio to work at The Columbus Dispatch in 2017. He’s won state and national journalism awards for investigations into utility regulation, public corruption, the environment, prescription drug spending and other matters.
CINCINNATI — Former state Rep. Nino Vitale on Tuesday testified that he didn’t have much of a memory for — nor was he much interested in — raising money or campaigning for office. At several points, the Republican from Urbana even said he didn’t remember what year he was first elected to the legislature (it was 2014.)
But on cross examination, federal prosecutors showed him records and written communications indicating that Vitale was regarded as an enthusiastic member of “Team Householder” who, as part of the team, received thousands in campaign funds and other assistance that originated with Akron-based FirstEnergy.
As former Speaker Larry Householder’s appointee to chair the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Vitale in 2019 helped to pass a $1.3 billion bailout that primarily benefited FirstEnergy. When they announced arrests in the summer of 2020, federal prosecutors said the bailout was at the center of what was likely the largest bribery and money-laundering scandal in Ohio history.
Vitale was called by Householder’s lawyers in the trial, which started on Jan. 23. Householder and former Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges are charged with racketeering in an alleged scheme to use $61 million in utility money to elect friendly lawmakers who would make Householder speaker and then bail out FirstEnergy’s failing nuclear and coal plants.
Vitale has long been known for controversial political gestures — including refusing to wear a mask at the height of the coronavirus pandemic because human faces are “the likeness of God.“
But on Tuesday, Vitale portrayed himself as a reluctant politician. In a possible nod to how uncompetitive his district was, the former lawmaker said he didn’t have to do much to get reelected.
“The whole marketing side of things wasn’t big on my radar because my district elected me overwhelmingly and frequently,” Vitale said.
Householder’s attorneys seemed to call Vitale and other Householder supporters in the House to testify so they could say they believed the bailout law was good public policy. But U.S. District Judge Timothy Black limited such testimony, saying the proceeding wasn’t a referendum on the merits of House Bill 6.
Vitale also said he never felt pressured to support Householder for speaker or to support the bailout.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Megan Gaffney Painter then posed a series of questions that seemed to be intended to show that Householder made Vitale chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee not because Vitale had any particular qualifications, but because he was an enthusiastic member of Team Householder who would do the speaker’s bidding.
Vitale tried to refute that characterization.
When Painter tried to get him to agree that he had little in his background to school him in large-scale electricity generation or the management of the state’s natural resources, Vitale wouldn’t.
“I know quite a lot about those topics, actually,” he testified.
Vitale said he works for his wife’s family’s company, which makes parts for truck brakes. It has an electricity substation and it sits on 30 acres, and those factors gave him expertise on the power grid and the environment, Vitale said.
When Painter proposed that Vitale had no academic credentials that would make him expert in those areas, Vitale disagreed again, saying his business degree provided him with such knowledge.
“In a business degree, part of what you study is energy inputs to a business,” Vitale said.
The former lawmaker also claimed that he wasn’t very familiar with FirstEnergy and had to be convinced to support the bailout bill. Then Painter displayed a text message from FirstEnergy Vice President Michael Dowling to CEO Chuck Jones on Feb. 17, 2019 — before the bill was introduced. Earlier testimony showed that the executives believed the bailout was critical to their company, and Jones had asked Dowling who was going to chair the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
“Nino Vitale from Springfield will chair,” Dowling responded. “Good friend and bigtime (Householder) supporter.”
Confronted with the message, Vitale said he’d only met Dowling a few times.
Vitale also disputed that it was Householder who first broached the idea of Vitale being chairman.
“I asked him,” Vitale said.
Then Painter played a voicemail message that Vitale left for Householder in January 2019, just after Householder had been made speaker. In it, Vitale said he had talked the matter over with his family.
“I’m in if that’s what you want me to do,” Vitale said.
As Painter tried to move on to another question, Vitale insisted that chairing the Energy and Natural Resources Committee was originally his idea.
And to refute Vitale’s claims that he was half-hearted about fundraising and political marketing, Painter displayed an October 4, 2017 text message Vitale sent to Jeffrey Longstreth, Householder’s right-hand man in making him speaker and then passing the bailout. It certainly seemed to link FirstEnergy’s policy agenda to Vitale’s desire for corporate contributions.
FirstEnergy lobbyist “Ty Pine wants to meet with me on a legislative matter and I want to meet with him on a contribution matter,” Vitale said in his message.
After more than a month, testimony in the trial is entering the homestretch. Householder’s final witnesses — including Householder himself — are expected to testify Wednesday and Thursday. Then it will be Borges’ turn to call any witnesses he may have.
After that, the prosecution and the defense teams will make closing statements, Judge Black will instruct the jury and then it will deliberate.
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