Energy firm at center of GOP bribery scandal pays $20M to avoid prosecution: report

An infamous energy company at the heart of a bribery scandal that shook the Ohio Republican Party will pay $20 million in a deal to avoid criminal charges, reported the Akron Beacon Journal.

A business filing obtained by the paper shows that FirstEnergy will pay $19.5 million to the Ohio Attorney General's office, and allocate an additional $500,000 for an independent consultant to review the company's practices.

FirstEnergy, which already paid a $230 million fine as part of the scandal, has admitted to bribing former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and ex-Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Chairman Sam Randazzo, in exchange for legislation to bail out a pair of nuclear power plants at a taxpayer expense of $1.3 billion.

Householder, a once-powerful figure within the Ohio Republican Party, was found to have been running the largest bribery scheme in the history of the state, receiving over $59 million in bribes himself as part of the deal, and last year was sentenced to 20 years in prison — the maximum sentence allowable under the law.

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U.S. District Judge Timothy Black excoriated Householder in the sentencing hearing at the time, saying, “You handed that money to suits in private jets,” which Ohio citizens could have instead used on things like education and business development. He also blasted Householder for secret recordings showing him profanely threatening other people involved in the scheme to keep in line with him. “You conned the people of Ohio and you tried to con the jury, too ... Bottom line, you were a bully."

A recent report this year found that one of former President Donald Trump's top campaign bundlers helped advise FirstEnergy on contributions to a dark money group involved in the bribery scheme.