View a previous report on Larry Householder’s sentencing over the FirstEnergy scandal in the video player above.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – The Ohio Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in a dispute over the state’s request to freeze up to $8 million owned by a former utility regulator implicated in the largest public corruption scandal in state history.
After an appellate court reversed a Franklin County judge’s decision to freeze the assets of former Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Chairman Sam Randazzo, attorneys appeared before the state’s highest court to argue in favor of – and against – re-freezing some of the top utility regulator’s capital as the state’s civil lawsuit against top players in a $60 million bribery scheme continues in court.
Attorney General Dave Yost requested the freeze of Randazzo’s assets in 2021, when Akron-based FirstEnergy admitted to paying the ousted PUCO chairman $4.3 million in exchange for helping craft House Bill 6, a $1.3 billion ratepayer-funded nuclear power plant bailout.
Randazzo, who has not been criminally charged in the scandal, resigned from the top regulator job in 2020, just days after the FBI raided his Columbus home.
Since then, Yost’s office has contended that Randazzo was “spending down criminal proceeds,” including selling a $500,000 house to his son and transferring millions of dollars in assets. The state’s move to freeze those assets was justified in order to prevent future monetary damage to the state, the state’s attorney Charles M. Miller said.
“Somebody receives these criminal proceeds – bribe money – as an employee of the state to take action that benefitted FirstEnergy for billions of dollars,” Miller told justices on Wednesday. “He just wants to be able to take that money, run off with it, spend it down, use it, move it around, give things to his children so he’s judgment-proof at the end of the day, and that has to stop.”
But Randazzo’s attorney Roger Sugarman, who successfully motioned a three-judge panel of the 10th District Court of Appeals to unfreeze the former PUCO chairman’s assets in September, told justices the state had no right, nor sufficient evidence, to seize his property.
FirstEnergy’s deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice – which Yost relied on as evidence to freeze Randazzo’s assets – is merely hearsay, or an allegation, of criminal behavior, Sugarman said.
“You have to find irreparable injury, present danger that property will be immediately disposed of, the value of the property will be substantially impaired,” Sugarman said. “The findings need to be supported by evidence – not just an affidavit.”
In March, a federal jury convicted former House Speaker Larry Householder and former state Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges of racketeering for helping to orchestrate the $60 million bribery scheme. A Cincinnati judge is expected to announce their prison sentences Thursday.
