AKRON, Ohio — FirstEnergy has agreed to pay $20 million to avoid criminal charges from the Ohio Attorney General's Office and Summit County Prosecutor's Office in connection with the House Bill 6 bribery scandal.
Since 2020, the two offices have worked to uncover the depth of the scheme that involved FirstEnergy executives, lawmakers, and energy officials. FirstEnergy has already admitted to paying $60 million in bribes to former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and others in return for him helping pass HB 6, which allocated more than $1 billion to bail out two failing nuclear power plants that were owned by one of the company's subsidiaries at that time.
Investigators uncovered a trail of dark money and collusion, leading to the arrests of Householder and other top political operatives four years ago. Householder is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence after being convicted in federal court, but is now also facing felony charges from the state.
Years later, FirstEnergy is working to put the scandal in the past. Per the agreement signed Monday, the Akron-based corporation will pay $19.5 million to AG Dave Yost's office to reimburse agencies for the costs of investigating the company along with $500,000 for an independent consultant to evaluate the company. They are also agreeing to provide information, evidence, and potential witness testimony in the cases of former CEO Chuck Jones and Senior Vice President Michael Dowling, whose criminal proceedings will continue.
The settlement with the state of Ohio is separate from a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement that saw FirstEnergy pay a $230 million fine. HB 6 has since been partially repealed, while the nuclear subsidiary that was spun off as Energy Harbor was officially acquired by Texas-based Vista earlier this year.
A spokesperson for Yost's office shared the following statement with 3News:
"The non-prosecution agreement signed between FirstEnergy, the Ohio Attorney General's Office and the Office of the Summit County Prosecuting Attorney requires FirstEnergy to provide evidence, access to witnesses and testimony in the ongoing criminal cases against Chuck Jones and Michael Dowling, as well as in civil proceeding relating to the passage of House Bill 6. FirstEnergy today is not the company it was five years ago — the corporation has undertaken, and continues to undergo, reforms to strengthen its internal ethics programs, to increase transparency, and promote reporting of questionable conduct by its employees and leadership. It has also restructured its board and leadership to remove the individuals responsible for the conduct that gave rise to the House Bill 6 scandal. This is an important step in bringing the disgraced corporate leaders who used their positions of power to betray FirstEnergy's ratepayers and employees and the people of Ohio to account for their crimes."
Current FirstEnergy CEO Brandon X. Tierney also said:
"We are pleased to have reached a resolution with the Ohio Attorney General's Office and the Office of the Summit County Prosecutor, which recognizes the substantial actions FirstEnergy has taken to establish a highly effective compliance program and instill a culture of ethics and integrity at every level of the organization. FirstEnergy, led by a new Board of Directors and executive team, is a stronger organization today, energized by our commitments to our stakeholders and well positioned for the future. As we move forward, our focus is investing in our regulated electric companies to improve the customer experience and to meet their energy needs today and into the future."