Akron-based FirstEnergy will pay a $230 million fine for bribing key Ohio officials in a calculated quest to secure a $1 billion ratepayer-funded bailout for two nuclear plants and fend off future rate hikes.
FirstEnergy s fine – while far from the $1.1 billion the company earned last year – is still the largest criminal penalty ever collected, as far as anyone can recall, in the history of this office, acting U.S. Attorney Vipal Patel said Thursday. The penalty surpassed $200 million imposed on Illinois ComEd in 2020.
Read the deferred prosecution agreement below The principle here is trying to come up with a number that stings but doesn’t annihilate, Patel said. In fact, FirstEnergy s stock soared after the three-year deferred prosecution agreement was announced.
Credit AP Photo/Farnoush Amiri
The energy giant at the center of a $60 million bribery scheme in Ohio admitted Thursday to new details of its role in the conspiracy as part of a deal with federal prosecutors, including how it used dark money groups to fund the effort and paid a soon-to-be top utility regulator to write the legislation it got in exchange.
Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud under the deferred prosecution agreement, Acting U.S. Attorney Vipal J. Patel and FBI Special Agent in Charge Chris Hoffman announced at a press conference.
The charge would be dropped if the company complies over three years with a list of required actions in the deal, including paying a $230 million criminal penalty and continuing to fully cooperate with investigators.
UPDATED: FirstEnergy charged federally, agrees to terms of deferred prosecution settlement Comment sought from Rep. Wilkin on HB 6
The Highland County Press
House Bill 6, as previously reported, was co-sponsored by Republican Reps. Shane Wilkin, R-Hillsboro, and Jamie Callender, R-Lake County.
The bill included a $1 billion bailout for two nuclear power plants operated at the time by a wholly-owned subsidiary of Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp.
According to the federal criminal complaint, a conspiracy to pass the bill had its roots on a flight FirstEnergy provided to former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford, and his son to President Donald Trump’s January 2017 inauguration.
FirstEnergy to pay $230 million
By Mark Gillispie, Julie Carr Smyth and Farnoush Amiri - Associated Press
Acting U.S. Attorney Vipal J. Patel, center, accompanied by FBI Special Agent in Charge Chris Hoffman, speaks Thursday during a news conference in Cincinnati. Federal authorities say Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. would pay a $230 million penalty and fully cooperate as part of an agreement announced Thursday to settle federal charges against the company in a sweeping bribery scheme in Ohio.
A worker drives a tractor through a tree farm May 18, 2011, in North Perry, Ohio, near the cooling towers of the Perry Nuclear Power Plant. A $60 million bribery case, involving ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and others, alleges to have helped prop up the Perry and Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Oak Harbor, Ohio.
FirstEnergy to pay $230M to settle Ohio bribery case newstribune.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from newstribune.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.