AKRON – Summit County Common Pleas Judge Susan Baker Ross announced an “impasse” Tuesday after a jury couldn’t agree over whether two ex-FirstEnergy executives paid off a senior state regulator with a $4.3 million bribe.
The state can choose to retry ex-FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones and ex-senior vice president of external affairs Mike Dowling, or it can drop the case. A status conference is set for 30 days from March 31.
The decision makes for a shocking and untidy ending for one of the major legal tests of a scandal brought by state and federal prosecutors that has dogged Ohio politics since July 2020.
Two men have served prison time in connection with the scandal, including an ex-Ohio House Speaker. Two alleged conspirators have died by suicide. And FirstEnergy, as a company, has admitted that Jones and Dowling conspired to pay millions of dollars to fund two separate bribery schemes.
Regardless, Jones and Dowling remain innocent until proven guilty at a retrial, should the state pursue one. Neither commented immediately after the decision.
In a video statement Tuesday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said the State of Ohio “can and will retry these defendants – justice needs to be done.”
After Ross read the verdict, she entered the jury room to speak with the 12 members. After she emerged, lawyers for both sides followed suit.
Catch up on the FirstEnergy trial: Read all of our coverage on what’s been called the largest public corruption case in state history.
The defendants argued throughout a six-week trial that the $4.3 million they paid stemmed from a legitimate legal settlement that the Industrial Energy Users of Ohio’s attorney, Sam Randazzo, stole. Gov. Mike DeWine appointed Randazzo to serve as chair of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio in 2019, about three weeks after Randazzo’s company received the payment from FirstEnergy.
The decision came down after 11 a.m., on the jury’s eighth full day of deliberations. Those long hours followed weeks of a dense and at times convoluted trial of an alleged criminal enterprise composed of sophisticated lawyers, lobbyists and executives that dated back to at least 2010. Jurors asked 11 written questions of the judge as they considered, with the most recent coming as late as 8:50 a.m. Tuesday.
Six weeks of trial testimony
The state’s case reached indirectly into the governor’s office. One major event detailed by prosecutors was a Dec. 18, 2018, dinner between Dowling, Jones, DeWine and his then Lt. Gov. — and now U.S. Sen. — Jon Husted. From that dinner, according to the state, the two defendants drove to Randazzo’s home in Columbus and hatched the central bribery scheme.
Less than three weeks after the transfer of funds in January 2019, DeWine appointed Randazzo to serve as chair of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, the agency that decides what prices and costs Ohio’s investor-owned gas, water and electric utilities can charge their customers.
Prosecutors argued the money was a simple bribe, paid in exchange for a series of regulatory decisions Randazzo made to FirstEnergy’s benefit until his resignation in November 2020 after FBI agents raided his home.
Defense attorneys have argued that Jones and Dowling sought to pay the money to Randazzo’s legal client, the Industrial Energy Users of Ohio, in connection with a 2015 settlement between FirstEnergy and IEU Ohio. Randazzo, the defendants say, stole the money, undermining the notion that it was a bribe.
Randazzo died by suicide in April 2024, leaving it to the other parties to hash out exactly what happened.
At times, witnesses described Jones as having an almost supernatural-like ability to predict favorable treatment from the PUCO before it arrived. In one key scene, they described Jones sharing rosy predictions with investors, causing alarm among executives until Jones’ guesswork would be validated by a ruling by the PUCO led by Randazzo a short few days later.
One ex-FirstEnergy executive, Dennis Chack, described making a house call to Randazzo’s home in Naples, Florida, with Jones while Randazzo was chair of the PUCO. There, they discussed several of FirstEnergy’s pending cases at the PUCO before Jones asked Chack to leave the room.
“Chuck [Jones] said go out and take a look at the boat and stuff, so we went out and stood on the dock and just kinda shot the breeze about the boat, and Chuck [Jones] and Sam [Randazzo] came out of the house about 10 minutes later,” he said.
Another described two top company lawyers advising Jones against paying Randazzo the $4.3 million, insisting FirstEnergy had no legal obligation to do so. Dowling urged Jones to pay. Jones made the ultimate decision.
All told, the state brought 26 witnesses (including one who was deposed remotely due to health reasons, and Dowling himself from a deposition in 2023).
PUCO spokesperson Matt Schilling declined to comment on the trial directly.
“I will remind you the PUCO since day one stated we are fully cooperating with investigators, and the Commission has pledged to do nothing to interfere with the work of the US attorney or attorney general’s investigations,” he said.
“For its part, the PUCO conducted 4 separate investigations and ultimately assessed the utilities’ $275 million in fines for various violations of regulatory law and PUCO orders.”
A juror speaks
After the trial, about six jurors declined interview requests from Signal Ohio.
However, one juror, Mark Baughman of Akron, spoke for about 10 minutes. He described the jury’s dynamics as fluid. At different times for different charges, they were roughly 8 to 4 toward conviction. At others, it was close to 10 to 2.
“Most people thought they were guilty,” he said.
When it came to the bribery charge, Baughman was ambivalent.
“We couldn’t come up with an answer for that,” he said. “For me, no, it wasn’t beyond a reasonable doubt.”
When asked, he didn’t directly answer whether he trusts institutions like the PUCO to do an honest job establishing the costs that utilities can charge customers in Ohio.
“I would hope that because of this case, hopefully, there are some changes that have been made. I don’t know,” he said.
Money
Prosecutors made regular note of the wealth of Jones and Randazzo especially.
For instance, they emphasized Jones made nearly $21 million as CEO in 2019, mostly in the form of company stock. This incentive system, they argued, played into his motive. Improvements for FirstEnergy meant bigger paydays for Jones.
They also highlighted an April 2020 email Jones sent to his financial adviser detailing plans to sell $10 million worth of company shares to purchase a retirement home in Naples, Florida. Using his math, he would be left with $30 million in remaining shares.
Similarly, the prosecutors relied on Randazzo’s financial adviser to provide similar color. He read to jurors from emails detailing Randazzo’s five homes in Columbus, Akron and Naples, Florida (the latter valued at $2.5 million). Those were accumulated during the alleged criminal window between 2010 and 2020. Two of the homes were to be given to his adult children.
There were another 19 vehicles if you count the 11 cars plus the scooters, motorcycle, boat and a three-wheeler.
Legal power
Assistant Attorney General Matt Meyer led the prosecution of the case, questioning all but a small handful of the state’s 26 witnesses.
In contrast, the two defendants often had close to 20 attorneys present in the courtroom spanning multiple law firms. It was enough to dominate the courtroom in a physical way – the defense lawyers had to rent their own chairs to seat them all.
Some have storied reputations of their own.
For instance, Carole Rendon, an attorney for Jones, was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve as a U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Co-counsel included George Stamboulidis, who led prosecutions of the New York mafia. William Scherman was a former chief of staff to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Meyer has said in court filings that FirstEnergy is funding both men’s legal defenses due to their indemnification contracts. However, the company has declined to confirm as much.
Rendon, an attorney for Jones, expressed gratitude to the jury for its “careful review” of all the evidence. She also praised Ross for her “fair and thoughtful oversight” of a complicated trial.
“While we are disappointed that the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict, we are not surprised given the numerous incidents of prosecutorial misconduct that occurred before and during this trial which infected the record in this case,” she said. “We hope the State of Ohio rethinks its decision to retry this case given the legal insufficiency of the charges. If not, we are prepared to seek a judgement of acquittal and will continue to vigorously defend Mr. Jones.”
John McCaffrey, an attorney for Dowling, issued a statement praising the seven women and five men on the jury.
“We appreciate the jury’s attention to the evidence and their service in this case,” he said. “We will be filing a motion for judgement of acquittal, and we will continue in our defense of Mr. Dowling.”
FirstEnergy spokeswoman Jennifer Young said FirstEnergy today is a different company.
“Over the last several years, we have taken meaningful steps to rebuild trust,” she said. “We have taken responsibility for past issues, strengthened our internal controls and created a more transparent and accountable way of operating. … We’ve also reshaped our culture. Our new leadership team is putting customers at the center of every action, moving decision-making closer to the communities we serve, and has made expectations for ethical conduct clear and consistent across the company.”