Ohio can freeze ex-top utility regulator’s $8 million in assets, high court says
Columbus, Ohio — The legal dispute over whether it was appropriate to freeze $8 million in personal assets belonging to a former top Ohio utility regulator who was embroiled in a federal bribery investigation has sparked renewed controversy.
In a ruling Tuesday, the Ohio Supreme Court reversed the Tenth District Court of Appeals’ decision and reinstated a lower court order allowing Sam Randazzo’s assets to be frozen again. The Supreme Court ruled that the appeals court made a technical error when it unblocked Randazzo’s properties.
It’s just the latest development in a yearslong battle for properties by Randazzo, a former chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. Federal prosecutors charged Randazzo with 11 counts last month in connection with a confession by Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. that it had paid him a $4.3 million bribe in exchange for favorable treatment. Randazzo has pleaded not guilty.
Writing for the majority, Judge Pat DeWine said the three-judge panel was wrong when it unfreezed Randazzo’s assets in December 2022 — a decision that had been put on hold during the ongoing litigation. The panel ruled that the state had not proven that it would suffer “irreparable harm” if Randazzo were given control of his property.
“The problem is that the irreparable injury was not appealable,” DeWine wrote.
Instead, when Randazzo sought to appeal a Franklin County judge’s unilateral August 2021 decision granting Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s request, the proper remedy would have been a full hearing in court, according to the Supreme Court. As a result, the court reversed the trial court’s decision.
Yost made his request because he was concerned that Randazzo appeared to be making an effort to unload personal belongings. He transferred a house worth $500,000 to his son and liquidated other properties worth a combined $4.8 million, sending about $3 million of the proceeds to his lawyers in California and Ohio.
During oral arguments in the case this summer, attorneys disagreed over whether the assets should have been frozen. A lawyer from Yost’s office told judges that Randazzo was “spending criminal proceeds” when the attorney general moved in to freeze his assets. Randazzo’s attorney argued that the state needed more than “unsupported evidence” of bribes to block Randazzo’s access to his property and cash.
Randazzo resigned as PUCO chairman in November 2020 after FBI agents searched his home in Columbus, shortly after the arrest of then-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four others.
The bribes that FirstEnergy said it paid to Randazzo were part of a scheme that a jury found was led by Householder to win the chairmanship, elect allies, provide a $1 billion bailout for two aging FirstEnergy affiliates to approve nuclear power plants and block a referendum to repeal the bailout plan. account.
Householder, a Republican, and lobbyist Matt Borges, a former chairman of the Ohio GOP, were convicted of racketeering in March for their roles in the scheme. The householder, considered the leader, was sentenced to twenty years in prison, and Borges to five. Both will appeal.