COLUMBUS, Ohio — State witnesses raised red flags about former FirstEnergy executives and their relationship with an allegedly corrupt utility regulator during the second week of the men's trial.
Former CEO Chuck Jones and VP Mike Dowling’s relationship with former Public Utilities Commission Chair Sam Randazzo has been under a microscope in the Summit County Court of Common Pleas.
"It was challenging," Ebony Yeboah-Amankwah, an attorney and former chief ethics officer for FirstEnergy, testified. "Randazzo seemed to have an issue with everything."
The former PUCO chair consistently went over her head to talk to the CEO if he didn't like what she was doing, Yeboah-Amankwah said.
The state accuses Jones and Dowling of paying Randazzo $4.3 million in bribes, along with $61 million spent to create and pass House Bill 6. H.B. 6 was legislation to provide a billion-dollar bailout.
For a more in-depth recap, please click here.
Back in 2019, former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder took that $61 million bribe in exchange for H.B. 6, all at the expense of the taxpayers.
In March of 2023, a jury found that Householder and former GOP leader Matt Borges, beyond a reasonable doubt, participated in the racketeering scheme that left four men guilty and one dead. Neil Clark, a lobbyist accused of bribery, died by suicide after pleading not guilty in 2021. Householder is now sitting in prison for two years, while Borges is out after serving half of his five-year sentence.
Jones and Dowling face nearly a dozen state charges each, ranging from bribery to corrupt activity. In January of 2025, a federal grand jury indicted them for racketeering.
Yeboah-Amankwah took an immunity deal and testified as a state witness, explaining that she advised against giving Randazzo the settlement, not understanding why they were giving so much money.
"We shouldn't pay out the full amount because we didn't get the benefit of the bargain," she said, recalling her thoughts at the time.
The settlement deal, which the prosecution calls the "magic" consulting agreement, is a sham document "designed to confuse and conceal" money to flow from FirstEnergy to Randazzo's shell companies. It was a relatively blank document that no one had signed, the prosecution said.
Yeboah-Amankwah also noted that Dowling sent privileged legal documents to Randazzo, as well as contacting him while the PUCO was evaluating FirstEnergy's case.
Dead man's fault
Randazzo, who is now dead, was the corrupt one, not the former executives, the defense argued.
Randazzo, facing dozens of charges in federal and state court, became the second defendant in this scheme to kill himself. He committed suicide in 2024, after his joint arraignment with Jones and Dowling, and after pleading not guilty.
Before Randazzo was the top regulator, he was a consultant for clients who worked with FirstEnergy and wanted to get a better deal from them (he was also a consultant for FirstEnergy, as well). Randazzo ran the books for the Industrial Energy Users-Ohio, a legitimate trade group.
The defense said that FirstEnergy was simply paying the former PUCO chair settlement funds owed to IEU-Ohio clients, like witness Matt Brakey, but Randazzo stole that money from them.
"The organization was victimized to a pretty grand scale... There was no rational explanation for this other than misappropriating funds from the organization," Brakey said on the stand.
The money was never intended for Randazzo, the defense said, and the men never knew about the alleged bribe. Jones allegedly, according to his attorney, didn't play a role in even facilitating this settlement, but Yeboah-Amankwah testified differently.
"The decision was deferred to Chuck to make," she said.
Evidence supports Yeboah-Amankwah's testimony that she was out of town when the defendants signed the settlement.
The judge has, on a couple of occasions, allowed witnesses to decline being recorded or photographed. News 5 Cleveland's media partners at the Akron Beacon Journal reported further on what those witnesses, like former FirstEnergy attorney Mark Hayden, have said.
The Beacon Journal reported that Hayden said Randazzo seemed to have a conflict of interest, and said that the settlement details were "so ambiguous" that they couldn't mean anything.
What's to come
Jurors will not be made aware that FirstEnergy, as a company, has already admitted to this bribery.
Major political leaders, like Gov. Mike DeWine and U.S. Senator Jon Husted, could testify.
The trial should last four to six more weeks.
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