In a motion filed by Attorney General David Yost last week, Yost sought to add the regulator, Sam Randazzo, and two FirstEnergy executives who were terminated to the lawsuit.
Yost sought the forfeiture of $4.3 million that the company admitted it paid to Randazzo in January of 2019 as insurance for Randazzo’s favor as the chair of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.
The motion claims that Randazzo, the target of an FBI investigation, transferred a home worth $500,000 to his son and sold four properties worth a combined $4.8 million. Ohio Judge Chris Brown froze the $8 million in assets after a hearing with Yost’s office Thursday.
“Randazzo is making moves that will make it harder to hold him financially accountable for accepting bribes,” Yost said in a statement Friday. “As the federal investigation continues, we need to make sure that his assets are available for recovery when his time comes to pay.”
For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.
Randazzo was appointed as Ohio’s top utility regulator by Republican Governor Mike DeWine in February of 2019 and took office two months later.
A message seeking comment was left with Randazzo’s attorney, Roger Sugarman, on Friday.
Randazzo resigned his utilities commission post last November after FBI agents searched his Columbus townhome and FirstEnergy initially revealed the $4.3 million payment.
FirstEnergy in the deferred prosecution agreement said Randazzo helped write a 2019 energy bill that lies at the heart of a $60 million bribery scandal secretly funded by the company.
The agreement calls for FirstEnergy to pay $230 million in penalties and abide by a long list of reform-minded provisions to avoid prosecution on a criminal conspiracy charge.
In a statement of facts attached to the prosecution agreement and signed by FirstEnergy CEO and President Steven Strah, the company admitted Randazzo also helped the company fix its “Ohio hole” after his appointment as commission chair.
Top executives of FirstEnergy were looking to avoid resetting rates for its three Ohio electric companies at the utilities commission in 2024, something Wall Street rating agencies had said would hurt the company’s bottom line.
The commission in November 2019 with Randazzo in charge issued an order saying, “we find that is no longer necessary or appropriate” for FirstEnergy’s Ohio electric companies to file rate cases in 2024. In January, with Randazzo no longer at the commission, the companies were ordered to file rates cases in 2024.
