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House Bill 6: Meet the lesser-known FirstEnergy officials accused of ties to the largest bribery scandal in Ohio history

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COLUMBUS, Ohio – As details about the House Bill 6 bribery scandal continue to trickle out, much attention has been given to two former FirstEnergy executives said to have led the scheme: ex-CEO Chuck Jones and former senior vice president Mike Dowling.

But Jones and Dowling are not the only FirstEnergy executives to have apparent ties to the largest bribery scheme in Ohio history. Several other top company officials were fired or retired after the scandal became public in the summer of 2020.

To date, no current or former FirstEnergy officials have been charged with any crime related to the HB6 scandal. But many of these officials are now defendants in a civil lawsuit filed by FirstEnergy shareholders. The lawsuit claims company leaders’ failure to provide proper oversight led to FirstEnergy routing $60 million in bribes through then-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder’s political network to help pass the 2019 energy law, as well as giving millions more in bribes to Sam Randazzo, formerly the state’s top utilities regulator.

Even though FirstEnergy admitted to bribing Householder and Randazzo, both men deny any wrongdoing, as do Jones and Dowling. Householder is scheduled to go to trial next January on a federal corruption charge; Randazzo hasn’t been charged with any crime so far.

Cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer reviewed records released during the past three years to stitch together the alleged role some of the lesser known FirstEnergy executives are said to have played behind the scenes.

Most, though not all, of the FirstEnergy officials listed here are defendants in at least one of two civil lawsuits filed by FirstEnergy shareholders over the HB6 scandal – one led by the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association (or LACERA), the other a derivatives lawsuit led by the Employees Retirement System of the City of St. Louis.

Dennis Chack

Former senior vice president of product development, marketing and branding

Chack was fired in late October of 2020 along with Jones and Dowling for, among other things, not telling FirstEnergy’s board about a secret $4.3 million payment given to Randazzo just weeks before Gov. Mike DeWine appointed him as chair of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.

The LACERA lawsuit claims that Chack was responsible for FirstEnergy’s extensive advertising and media campaign to spread “false and misleading information” about the purported benefits of HB6 to help pass the legislation and thwart a subsequent attempt to repeal it.

“Chack worked directly with Jones and other FirstEnergy executives to shape the Company’s misleading HB6 messaging strategy,” the lawsuit stated, adding he “almost certainly” attended a September 2019 meeting to discuss anti-repeal efforts being covertly funded by FirstEnergy.

The lawsuit also claims that Chack participated in “insider trading” by selling more than 10,000 shares of FirstEnergy stock for $413,000 in March of 2019, “while the price of FirstEnergy stock was artificially inflated” as a result of the HB6 scheme.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit also claimed in a filing that Chack, along with Dowling and then-FirstEnergy lobbyist Ty Pine (see below) “coordinated the quid-pro-quo arrangements with Householder, Randazzo, and associated dark money groups.”

Records show Chack and Jones traded text messages in March of 2020 about how Randazzo overruled other commissioners and staff to secure policies that benefitted the Akron-based utility – including “burning” the final report of a PUCO-commissioned audit into $168-million-per-year customer grid-modernization charge, which was overturned by the Ohio Supreme Court in 2019. Jones assured Chack that Randazzo would “get it done for us.”

Last year, FirstEnergy demanded that Chack repay his salary and equity to the company.

Chack, in a legal filing, denied the lawsuit’s claims that he was involved in any wrongdoing. The allegations that he attended the September 2019 meeting, the filing stated, are “vague and based on speculation,” and he “lacks knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief” as to whether the allegations are true. He also objected to characterizing the sale of his FirstEnergy stock as “insider trading.”

Robert Reffner

Former senior vice president and chief legal officer

Less than two weeks after Chack was fired, FirstEnergy announced it also fired Reffner “due to inaction and conduct that…was influenced by the improper tone at the top” related to the HB6 scandal.

Reffner oversaw legal, ethics, internal auditing, and risk management activities for FirstEnergy. “As a result, Reffner was directly involved in and intimately familiar with FirstEnergy’s extensive efforts to facilitate the Bailout Scheme and prevent its detection,” according to the LACERA lawsuit, which listed Reffner as one of the defendants. Reffner had an incentive to conceal the scheme, the lawsuit claims, as he was compensated nearly $2.5 million in 2019 alone by FirstEnergy.

Reffner, in a legal filing, denied the lawsuit’s allegations.

Ebony Yeboah-Amankwah

Former chief ethics officer and general counsel

Yeboah-Amankwah was fired by FirstEnergy at the same time as Reffner for the same stated reason: “inaction and conduct” related to the HB6 scandal.

Emails and other documents made public by the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, the state’s utility watchdog, show that Yeboah-Amankwah, while serving as FirstEnergy’s vice president of state and regulatory legal affairs, received invoices from Randazzo’s company for the millions in payments. Yeboah-Amankwah also mentioned in the 2015 email that she and other FirstEnergy officials, including Dowling and Leila Vespoli (see below) had “regularly scheduled meetings” with Randazzo.

Yeboah-Amankwah is listed as a defendant in the derivatives lawsuit, which accuses her of signing misleading statements to investors that the company wasn’t engaged in any misconduct.

The Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel arranged to depose Yeboah-Amankwah in July about the payments to Randazzo. However, the deposition was halted at the request of the U.S. attorney’s office in Columbus, which said the questioning could interfere with the ongoing federal investigation into the HB6 scandal. U.S. Attorney Kenneth Parker later successfully asked the PUCO to freeze its four HB6-related investigations altogether for at least six months.

Marcie Lape, an attorney for Yeboah-Amankwah, declined comment Thursday.

Steven Strah

Former FirstEnergy CEO

Strah, Chuck Jones’ replacement as FirstEnergy CEO, abruptly announced his retirement last month. While FirstEnergy didn’t give a reason for Strah’s unexpected departure, his decision came at the same time FirstEnergy announced it completed a review of its management team as part of a proposed lawsuit settlement agreement (separate from the shareholders’ lawsuit).

The LACERA lawsuit, which lists Strah as a defendant, claims that, while serving as vice president of FirstEnergy’s utilities operations, Strah “reviewed and determined the company’s accounting for its payments and political contributions,” including the illicit bribe money. The suit also alleges that Strah made false or misleading statements on an investor call and certified federal regulatory rulings that deceived shareholders about FirstEnergy’s political activity.

The LACERA suit asserts that Strah had a strong financial motive to commit fraud: he received more than $13.5 million from FirstEnergy between 2017 and 2019, more than 80% of which was performance-based compensation.

FirstEnergy, in a legal filing, denied the allegations. A legal filing by Strah and many other defendants in the LACERA suit notes that the lawsuit never provides any specific evidence showing that Strah or James Pearson (see below) made any “accounting” errors or knew about the existence of any quid pro quo scheme. The filing also notes that the lawsuit makes no allegations that Strah or Pearson knew that the information they were certifying was false.

The month before Strah announced his retirement, emails from 2019 became public between Strah, Dowling and Mikkelsen regarding plans to pass a so-called “decoupling” measure allowing the company to charge customers millions of dollars more than it otherwise would be allowed.

In one email, Strah wrote that he “completely understand(s) the ‘under the radar’ aspect” of FirstEnergy’s – ultimately successful – plans to include the “decoupling” language in HB6. After Householder’s arrest in 2020, state lawmakers repealed the “decoupling” provision as well as the nuclear bailout.

Strah was also named as a defendant in the civil lawsuit that FirstEnergy agreed to settle with shareholders for $180 million and other provisions, including the management review. District Court Judge Algenon Marbley ostensibly gave final approval to the settlement last month, but another federal judge, John Adams, has so far refused to sign off on the deal, saying not enough information about the bribery scandal has been collected.

Strah was also a member of FirstEnergy’s Executive Council in December 2018, when Jones claims in a legal filing that he told the council about the $4.3 million payment to Randazzo. A FirstEnergy spokeswoman told the Energy and Policy Institute that Strah didn’t know about the payment in 2018, though she declined to comment on whether Strah attended the December 2018 meeting.

Cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer has reached out to Strah’s attorney for comment.

James Pearson

Former FirstEnergy chief financial officer and vice president of finance

Pearson, who retired in April 2019, was a member of the same working group Vespoli served on. The shareholders’ lawsuit claims that he reviewed and handled FirstEnergy’s accounting for the company’s illicit payments, and that he wrongly certified that FirstEnergy’s quarterly financial filings were accurate, complete and fairly presented.

The LACERA lawsuit also claims Pearson engaged in “insider trading” by selling 40,000 FirstEnergy shares in January 2019 for a total of more than $1.5 million. During the course of the bribery scheme, Pearson was paid about $22.8 million by FirstEnergy, according to a court order.

In a legal response to the lawsuit, Pearson denied the suit’s claims. He stated that he was not directly involved in or intimately familiar with key aspects of the bribery scheme, as the suit alleges. As noted above, another response to the lawsuit states that no evidence has been presented showing that Pearson knew about any illegal activity or that there were problems with the information that he certified.

Leila Vespoli

Former executive vice president of corporate strategy and regulatory affairs, chief legal officer

Vespoli, Reffner’s predecessor, retired from FirstEnergy in April 2019, and now serves on TimkenSteel’s board of directors. She’s another defendant in the LACERA civil lawsuit.

The lawsuit claims that Vespoli retired before she could be fired, as she allegedly “was directly involved in and intimately familiar with key aspects of the bailout scheme,” as she was part of a FirstEnergy working group handling the attempts to secure subsidies for FirstEnergy’s nuclear plants. The suit states that Vespoli also oversaw the company’s lobbying activities, political contributions, and interaction with state regulators and lawmakers.

The suit also alleges that Vespoli engaged in “insider trading” by selling about 36,400 shares of FirstEnergy stock in March 2018, then selling another 24,400 shares a year later, for a combined total of about $2.1 million. Vespoli collected nearly $16.3 million from FirstEnergy between 2017 and 2019, most of which was performance-based pay based on the company’s financial performance, according to the lawsuit.

In a legal response, Vespoli denied the lawsuit’s allegations. She stated that the working group didn’t engage in illegal conduct and was not part of the nuclear bailout scheme, and she asserted it was inappropriate to draw any inferences that she knew about any misconduct because of her job duties.

Eileen Mikkelsen

Former vice president of rates and regulatory affairs, and acting vice president of external affairs

Mikkelsen was fired by FirstEnergy in May of 2021 for her “inaction” regarding changes made in 2015 to Randazzo’s consulting contract. Those changes dramatically increased FirstEnergy’s payments to Randazzo in exchange for what the company has said was his agreement to change sides on a key state regulatory move sought by the company.

She, along with Dowling, also were the recipients of Strah’s email about the “‘under the radar’ aspect” of FirstEnergy’s successful attempt to pass a lucrative “decoupling” provision.

Cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer has reached out to Mikkelsen’s attorney for comment.

Ty Pine, Joel Bailey and Justin Biltz

Former FirstEnergy lobbyists

Pine, FirstEnergy’s director of state affairs; Bailey, vice-president for state and local affairs and economic development; and Biltz, director of state and regulatory affairs, were each terminated by FirstEnergy in February 2021 after the two lobbied for FirstEnergy for several years.

Pine helped lawmakers write HB6 and served as a “central liaison between FirstEnergy and corrupt Ohio politicians and regulators,” according to the LACERA lawsuit. Pine had at least 188 phone calls with Householder and his co-conspirators (most of whom have pleaded guilty to their roles in the scandal), including two times in 2018 when FirstEnergy sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to Householder’s enterprise soon after Pine contacted Householder or his political aide, Jeff Longstreth.

After HB6 passed the legislature on July 23, 2019, Jones texted a photoshopped picture of Mt. Rushmore with the heads of Pine, Randazzo, Dowling and Matt Evans, a coal company executive who donated $125,000 to pro-HB6 groups. The picture included the words, “HB6 – F*** ANYBODY WHO AIN’T US.”

Pine’s attorney, John Mitchell, declined to comment Thursday.

Last May, a FirstEnergy official said during a deposition that Bailey, along with Dowling, created Partners for Progress, one of the dark-money groups used to route the FirstEnergy money to Householder’s network. Bailey and Dowling incorporated Partners for Progress in the state of Delaware instead of Ohio so it would be harder for the public to learn details about the group. Bailey also approved a payment to another Householder-affiliated dark-money group, Hardworking Ohioans, in 2018, according to a PUCO filing by the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association Energy Group. Cleveland.com / The Plain Dealer

Bailey declined to comment.

Biltz is a defendant in the derivatives lawsuit. An FBI affidavit states that when Cliff Rosenberger announced in April 2018 that he was resigning as Ohio House speaker, Longstreth spoke with FirstEnergy’s director of state affairs – Biltz’s title at the time. The derivatives lawsuit said that call, along with other calls made that day, left “no doubt that FirstEnergy was inextricably tied to Householder’s illicit conspiracy to retake the speakership.”

Biltz’s attorney, Ralph Cascarilla, declined to comment.

Donald Schneider and John Judge

Former CEOs, FirstEnergy Solutions/Energy Harbor

FirstEnergy Solutions, which was a subsidiary of FirstEnergy when HB6 was passed, is the owner of the two nuclear power plants that would have received the $1 billion-plus ratepayer bailout. FirstEnergy Solutions emerged from bankruptcy in 2020 as a separate company called Energy Harbor. Schneider was CEO of FirstEnergy Solutions until February 2019, when Judge took over the position.

The LACERA lawsuit, which lists both Schneider and Judge as defendants, claims Schneider was “directly involved in the bailout scheme” through through his responsibilities for FirstEnergy Solutions’ lobbying and regulatory efforts, work to separate the company from FirstEnergy, and attempts to find “solutions” for the nuclear plants. To create the appearance that FirstEnergy Solutions independently supported Householder, the lawsuit continued, Schneider directed his company to hire former Ohio Republican Party Chair Matt Borges as a lobbyist.

Borges is set to go to trial with Householder early next year on a corruption conspiracy charge; like Householder, Borges has denied any wrongdoing.

Judge, meanwhile, directed FirstEnergy Solutions to hire Juan Cespedes as the company’s main HB6 lobbyist, according to the LACERA lawsuit. Cespedes pleaded guilty in 2020 to his role in the bribery scheme, including coordinating payments to dark-money groups. Judge met with Householder to discuss the bailout scheme, and he oversaw the use of FirstEnergy Solutions employees in commercials opposing the repeal of HB6, according to the lawsuit.

Schneider, in a legal response to the LACERA lawsuit, denied any wrongdoing. Judge’s attorneys, in a response to the suit, assert that he shouldn’t be listed as a defendant, as the suit doesn’t list any specific allegations against him besides attending an HB6 meeting, hiring Cespedes, and issuing a press release after HB6 was passed.




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