COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Text messages, handwritten notes, and emails cracked open what is likely Ohio’s largest corruption case, and this week more alleged key players in it are being held accountable.
“I was glad to see it,” whistleblower Tyler Fehrman said. “The folks involved in investigating, the folks involved in prosecuting, and anybody else in Ohio who has paid any attention to the House Bill 6 corruption scandal should absolutely be taking a victory lap.”
It is all a part of a $60-million bribery case to pass House Bill 6, a bailout bill for FirstEnergy, which has already landed former Speaker of the Ohio House Larry Householder and former chairman of the Ohio Republican Party Matt Borges in federal prison.
“Things that are done in the dark always come to light,” Fehrman said. “And I think that it’s important that the state sends a message to anybody who wants to think about doing things like this in the future or have done something, that they will be found out.”
Fehrman was approached and later threatened by Borges and is the one who first went to the FBI.
“Nothing can prepare you to be put in a situation where people that you trust are asking you to do something that you know is just patently wrong and on a larger scale than you’ve ever experienced,” he said.
On Monday, ex-CEO of FirstEnergy Chuck Jones, former VP of the company Michael Dowling and Sam Randazzo, the former chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO), were all indicted on the state level, for 27 combined charges. Fehrman said he was glad to see FirstEnergy players being held accountable for the first time.
“These guys were kind of the money behind the ground game that made my life absolute hell for a long time,” he said. “It’s one of the largest crimes perpetrated against the people of Ohio. It seeped into almost every level of government structure in the state.”
But for Randazzo, these were not the first charges brought against him. He has already been charged at the federal level and is accused of taking a $4.3 million bribe, from the two indicted FirstEnergy executives, to help craft HB6.
“That is an astounding amount of money,” Gov. Mike DeWine said. “The first time I recall knowing anything about the payment and certainly a payment of that size was in the time vicinity when we were informed that there was actually a raid going on at Sam Randazzo’s house.”
DeWine appointed Randazzo to his spot at PUCO.
“Is that something that I wish we hadn’t done? Well sure, I wish we hadn’t appointed him,” DeWine said. “We did not know all those facts, I did not know all those facts at that time.”
DeWine said while he knew that Randazzo had worked for FirstEnergy, he did not know about the multi-million-dollar payout. DeWine said that, from his perspective, Randazzo was someone who had worked on both sides of the issue, for both the consumers and the energy companies.
“He is clearly a subject matter expert, Sam Randazzo knows a lot about this field,” DeWine said.
But as cleveland.com first reported, one of DeWine’s top staffers at the time testified that she knew about the multi-million-dollar payout.
“If we knew that piece of information, we would not have appointed him, if we knew that amount of money,” DeWine said. “We all make mistakes, every call I make as governor is not right. I do the best I can, I base it on the facts that I have.”
“Anyone who doesn’t believe that Mike DeWine and Jon Husted, or others on the 30th floor of the Rife Tower, didn’t know as well, it doesn’t even pass the straight face test to me,” Fehrman said.
Fehrman said he thinks there is more to be uncovered in this case.
“I think there are more folks involved and I think we might still see more indictments coming or at least more investigation coming as things progress,” he said.
But said in the meantime, he thinks laws in Ohio need to change to ensure a scandal like this can’t happen again.
“There needs to be more transparency in politics, anti-corruption measure and efforts and extremely important,” Fehrman said. “To see folks proposing anti-corruption efforts — excellent. But then to see the folks in power who could move that legislation just remain silent? It’s disgusting.”
Several anti-corruption bills have been introduced like House Bill 112, introduced by Democrats, which has only had one committee hearing since being rolled out last March, or House Bill 16, introduced by a Republican lawmaker, which has not had a committee hearing since last March.