A bailout, a political machine and an electric bill
Ohio’s House Bill 6 scandal turned a dispute about supporting nuclear power into a criminal case about buying government action. Larry Householder, then speaker of the Ohio House, led an enterprise that received nearly $61 million in bribes to pass the legislation and protect it from a voter referendum. A federal jury convicted him in 2023; the court imposed a 20-year sentence. The payments, the proposed subsidies and the eventual penalties describe different parts of the story. [1]
At the center was FirstEnergy Corp., the Akron utility holding company. Its 2021 agreement with federal prosecutors contained corporate admissions of payments exchanged for official action. That admission matters: the company’s conduct is not simply an untested accusation. It does not, however, decide every individual defendant’s guilt. The separate cases against former executives must be read on their own records. [3]
The business problem and the political opportunity
FirstEnergy’s generation business had been moving away from its regulated utility operations before the scandal became public. The company’s July 2020 account said it began a strategic review of competitive generation in November 2016, changed that business’s board and hired separate advisers. The generation business filed for bankruptcy in March 2018 and was then removed from FirstEnergy’s consolidated financial statements. This was the company’s contemporaneous explanation, issued by CEO Charles Jones after the arrests, rather than an independent finding that all relevant ties had ended. [4]
The threatened closures made the stakes tangible. FirstEnergy’s April 2018 securities filing reported plans to close Davis-Besse in Oak Harbor, Ohio, in 2020 and Perry in Perry, Ohio, in 2021. HB 6 was signed on July 23, 2019. Three days later, FirstEnergy Solutions Corp. announced that it had withdrawn those two shutdown notices following the legislation. An announced closure and its withdrawal are corporate decisions; they do not independently prove what would have happened without the bill. [20] [21] [23]
Supporters publicly defended HB 6 as a way to preserve jobs, support zero-carbon generation and reduce electricity costs by changing existing charges. Those were the arguments presented by the Ohio House Republican newsroom when the bill passed. They explain its public policy rationale, but are not independent verification of the claimed savings or a defense to a proven exchange of money for official action. [22]
The distinction helps explain the policy dispute. A power plant competing to sell electricity faces a different financial problem from a regulated wires business whose charges are overseen by a commission. A subsidy can change the economics of the plant, while separate rate provisions can change the earnings of the distribution business. A single energy bill can therefore benefit several different interests. The bribery case concerned how official support was obtained, not a general rule that every nuclear subsidy is corrupt.
2017–2019: money helped build the speakership
The original federal complaint traced the organization of Generation Now, a nonprofit social-welfare entity, to February 2017 and alleged that Householder secretly controlled it. Payments began the following month. Prosecutors said spending supported Householder and candidates expected to back his bid for speaker; approximately 21 state candidates received support in the 2018 cycle. The concealment mattered because the money’s public label did not reveal the financial relationship underlying it. These were the allegations made when the case was unsealed in July 2020. [2]
The later trial established the central exchange. The government proved a racketeering conspiracy using bribery, money laundering and honest-services wire fraud. Political spending helped Householder build power, and the enterprise used that power to pass and defend HB 6. Householder also used more than half a million dollars for personal expenses, including credit-card balances, repairs to a Florida residence and settlement of a lawsuit. Those personal benefits were separate from campaign spending and from the law’s prospective value. [1]
Passing the bill was only part of the operation
Opponents tried to put repeal before voters, making signature collection a second political contest. The criminal case against former state Republican Party chair Matthew Borges focused partly on that phase. According to the Justice Department’s sentencing account, he delivered a $15,000 check to an operative in exchange for inside information about the referendum’s signature count. The point was to protect legislation already secured. Borges was convicted of the racketeering conspiracy and sentenced to five years on June 30, 2023. [16]
The sequence is important. The money did not simply arrive after an official cast one vote. It supported the formation of a legislative power base, passage of a financially valuable law, and efforts to prevent voters from reversing it. Concealed funding connected those stages. That is why the case became a story about the integrity of policymaking as well as the price of electricity.
A second channel reached the utility regulator
The corporate agreement also addressed a separate $4.3 million payment to another public official in exchange for actions advancing FirstEnergy’s interests. The company admitted using nonprofit entities, including one it controlled, to conceal the source, nature and control of payments. In July 2021 it accepted a $230 million criminal monetary penalty and cooperation and disclosure obligations under a deferred prosecution agreement. A deferred prosecution agreement postpones prosecution subject to conditions; it is not a jury acquittal. [3]
Ohio’s February 2024 indictment named former Public Utilities Commission of Ohio chairman Sam Randazzo alongside Jones and former senior vice president Michael Dowling. The indictment alleged a scheme affecting the regulator and ratemaking, as well as theft and false records. Those allegations concerned specific defendants and transactions. The company’s admissions and the state’s charging document have different legal roles, even where they address related conduct. Randazzo’s death before trial, subsequently confirmed in the state’s 2026 release, left no trial verdict against him. [7] [9]
2020–2024: discovery became a corporate reckoning
The FBI investigation became public with Householder’s arrest on July 21, 2020. The original complaint drew on recorded conversations and the movement of money. Its publication changed the story from a contentious energy law into an alleged criminal enterprise. A complaint was the beginning of that public prosecution, not its final proof. [2]
FirstEnergy’s board announced Jones’s termination on October 29, 2020, along with the termination of two other senior executives. Its independent review committee said it had found violations of company policies and the code of conduct. An employment decision is distinct from a criminal verdict, but the announcement marked a break with the leadership that had publicly explained the company’s conduct just months earlier. [5]
The SEC later examined what investors had been told. Its September 2024 order found misrepresentations after Householder’s arrest, undisclosed material related-party transactions, and failures in books, records and internal accounting controls. FirstEnergy agreed to a cease-and-desist order and a $100 million civil penalty. This added a securities-disclosure dimension: investors were entitled to an accurate account of the company’s involvement and financial exposure. The SEC separately filed a civil fraud case against Jones; the corporate settlement did not itself resolve the separate claims against him. [6] [19]
What was taken, promised, paid or returned?
The approximately $60 million bribery figure measures funding of the scheme. It is not the amount each household lost. Likewise, the billion-dollar description of HB 6 concerned prospective policy benefits over time, not a single payment received by Householder. The $230 million federal corporate penalty was a different obligation again: half was assigned to the U.S. Treasury and half to assistance for lower-income Ohio electricity customers. FirstEnergy’s filings say the penalty was paid in the third quarter of 2021 and could not be recovered from customers through rates. [10]
Other resolutions must also be kept separate. FirstEnergy’s third-quarter 2024 filing reports payment of the $100 million SEC penalty on September 25, 2024. It also reports that a $19.5 million settlement with Ohio authorities was paid on August 16, 2024. Recording a loss contingency, agreeing to a settlement and paying it are different events. These payments do not establish that every civil claim was settled or that all customers received full compensation. [11]
The legislation changed, and customers received separate relief
In February 2021, Ohio’s attorney general announced an agreement stopping the HB 6 profit rider. The office estimated that it would avoid $102 million of charges in that year and described broader multiyear savings from blocking the nuclear subsidy and rider. Those figures were estimates of avoided future charges, not cash recovered from the defendants. [17]
House Bill 128 subsequently repealed portions of HB 6, limited its credit-payment provisions to solar resources and provided for customer refunds. The legislature records an effective date of June 30, 2021. It was a partial repeal, so saying that the entire 2019 law disappeared at that point would be inaccurate. Legislative revision and prosecution addressed different questions: the charges consumers could face and the legality of how the earlier law had been obtained. [12]
A later regulatory settlement covered four PUCO proceedings. In its January 8, 2026 announcement, FirstEnergy described $275 million: $250 million returned directly to customers, $5 million in additional residential credits, and $20 million for lower-income assistance, weatherization and efficiency programs. These were settlement components, not a new estimate of the original bribes. The announcement’s bill examples were estimates and should not be read as an identical payment to every household. [13]
The Ohio Consumers’ Counsel separately described approximately $280 million in consumer recovery in its account of the January 2026 settlement. The differing headline totals are not combined here into a larger number. The accounts describe a negotiated regulatory remedy, and neither headline by itself establishes each customer’s actual credit or a comprehensive lifetime cost of the scandal. [18]
The cases did not all end together
Householder’s and Borges’s criminal judgments survived appellate review. Their Supreme Court dockets record the Sixth Circuit decision on May 6, 2025, denial of rehearing on July 25, 2025, and denial of their requests for Supreme Court review on April 27, 2026. Refusal to hear a case leaves the lower-court result in place; it does not produce a new Supreme Court ruling on every legal argument. [14] [15]
Jones and Dowling have separate federal exposure. In January 2025 a federal grand jury charged them with a racketeering conspiracy involving alleged bribery, money laundering and obstruction. Prosecutors alleged a purpose of increasing FirstEnergy’s stock price and enriching the executives. That account of motive remains an allegation in their case, rather than a personal intention established simply by the company’s earlier agreement. [8]
The state prosecution followed another path. Ohio’s June 4, 2026 release records that a trial ended with a deadlocked jury and mistrial in March, followed by reindictment. The release describes 22 distinct felony counts in the combined indictment, with some shared by both defendants. It does not announce convictions. This article’s October 6, 2026 source check did not establish a later state merits judgment; the June reindictment is the latest state disposition verified here. A previously announced retrial date is not evidence that a retrial occurred or reached a verdict. [9]
The SEC’s separate civil case against Jones also changed. On June 30, 2026, the agency announced that the court had granted his motion to dismiss on June 27 because the complaint, as alleged, did not state a securities-law claim. That pleading ruling did not decide the separate criminal charges, and this account does not infer a later appeal or finality beyond the reported dismissal. [24]
What remained unresolved in the latest company filing
FirstEnergy’s June 30, 2026 Form 10-Q says it completed the obligations required during the original three-year DPA term in July 2024, while continuing disclosure and cooperation duties remained. Dismissal of the criminal information was conditional on related proceedings ending and completion of those remaining duties. The filing also described investor litigation for which a loss was considered probable but could not yet be reasonably estimated. It therefore does not support either a closed-everything narrative or an invented final dollar cost. [10]
Ohio’s lasting consequence is broader than a single fine. A financing problem at power plants became entangled with hidden political support, legislative power and utility regulation. Customers, shareholders and the state then sought different forms of relief through different institutions. The clearest account follows each stream separately: proven bribery and corporate admissions, individual charges still requiring their own adjudication, policy benefits that were curtailed, and remedies whose recipients and payment dates differ.
Sources
- DOJ: Householder sentencing and trial evidence, June 29, 2023Official sourceBack to text: ↑1↑2
- DOJ: original Householder complaint and arrests, July 21, 2020Official sourceBack to text: ↑1↑2
- DOJ: FirstEnergy corporate admissions and deferred prosecution, July 22, 2021Official sourceBack to text: ↑1↑2
- FirstEnergy: contemporaneous statement on generation-business separation, July 27, 2020SourceBack to text: ↑
- FirstEnergy: leadership terminations, October 29, 2020SourceBack to text: ↑
- SEC: FirstEnergy settlement findings, September 12, 2024Filing / reportBack to text: ↑
- Ohio attorney general: original state indictments, February 12, 2024Official releaseBack to text: ↑
- DOJ: separate federal Jones and Dowling indictment, January 17, 2025Official sourceBack to text: ↑
- Ohio attorney general: mistrial and reindictment, June 4, 2026Official releaseBack to text: ↑1↑2
- FirstEnergy: June 30, 2026 Form 10-Q, Other Legal ProceedingsFiling / reportBack to text: ↑1↑2
- FirstEnergy: September 30, 2024 Form 10-Q, settlement paymentsFiling / reportBack to text: ↑
- Ohio legislature: enacted House Bill 128, effective June 30, 2021Official sourceBack to text: ↑
- FirstEnergy: PUCO-approved customer settlement, January 8, 2026SourceBack to text: ↑
- U.S. Supreme Court: Householder docket 25-756, certiorari denied April 27, 2026Official sourceBack to text: ↑
- U.S. Supreme Court: Borges docket 25-757, certiorari denied April 27, 2026Official sourceBack to text: ↑
- DOJ: Borges sentencing and referendum conduct, June 30, 2023Official sourceBack to text: ↑
- Ohio attorney general: agreement ending HB 6 profit rider, February 1, 2021Official releaseBack to text: ↑
- Ohio Consumers’ Counsel: account of the January 2026 customer-restitution settlement, checked October 6, 2026Official sourceBack to text: ↑
- SEC: separate civil fraud complaint against Charles Jones, September 12, 2024Filing / reportBack to text: ↑
- FirstEnergy: April 2, 2018 Form 8-K, bankruptcy and announced nuclear closuresFiling / reportBack to text: ↑
- Ohio legislature: HB 6 action history, signed July 23, 2019Official sourceBack to text: ↑
- Ohio House Republican newsroom: stated case for HB 6, July 23, 2019Official sourceBack to text: ↑
- FirstEnergy Solutions company release: nuclear shutdown notices rescinded, July 26, 2019SourceBack to text: ↑
- SEC: Jones motion to dismiss granted on June 27, 2026, announced June 30, 2026Filing / reportBack to text: ↑