Former FirstEnergy Vice President Michael Dowling and former FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones listen as former FirstEnergy Chief Ethics Officer Ebony Yeboah-Amankwah is questioned as a state witness during a trial in Summit County Common Pleas Court in Judge Susan Baker Ross’s courtroom in Akron on February 17, 2026. (Photo by Pool Photographer Mike Cardew/Akron Beacon Journal).
In the second week of the men’s trial, state witnesses raised red flags about former FirstEnergy executives and their relationships with the allegedly corrupt utility regulator.
Former CEO Chuck Jones and Vice President Mike Dowling’s relationship with former Public Utilities Commission Chairman Sam Randazzo has come under intense scrutiny by the Summit County Court of Common Pleas.
“It was a challenge,” testified Ebony Yeboah-Amankwah, a lawyer and former chief ethics officer at FirstEnergy. “Randazzo seemed to have a problem with everything.”
The former PUCO chairwoman consistently pressured her to talk to the CEO if he didn’t like what she was doing, Yeboah-Amankwah said.
The state accuses Jones and Dowling of paying $4.3 million in bribes to Randazzo and providing another $61 million in bribes to Ohio lawmakers to create and pass Ohio House Bill 6.
HB 6 was legislation intended to provide billions in aid to FirstEnergy and other utilities.
In 2019, former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder accepted $61 million in bribes in exchange for HB 6.
In March 2023, a jury found that Householder and former Republican Party leader Matt Borges participated beyond a reasonable doubt in a racketeering scheme that left four men guilty and one dead.
Neil Clark, a lobbyist accused of bribery, died by suicide after pleading not guilty in 2021. Householder is currently serving two years of a 20-year sentence, while Borges is on parole after serving half of a five-year sentence.
Jones and Dowling face nearly a dozen state charges ranging from bribery to corrupt activity. In January 2025, a federal grand jury indicted them on racketeering charges.
Yeboah-Amankwah signed an immunity agreement and testified as a state witness, explaining that she advised against giving Randazzo a plea deal, not understanding why they were giving so much money.
“We shouldn’t have paid the full amount because we didn’t take advantage of the opportunity,” she said, recalling her thoughts at the time.
The settlement, which prosecutors call a “magic” consulting contract, is a false document “intended to mislead and conceal” money flowing from FirstEnergy to Randazzo shell companies.
The prosecutor’s office said it was a relatively blank document that no one signed.
Yeboah-Amankwah also noted that Dowling sent Randazzo privileged legal documents and also contacted him while the PUCO was assessing the FirstEnergy case.
It’s the dead man’s fault
The defense argued that it was the delayed Randazzo who was corrupt, not the former executives.
Randazzo, who faces dozens of charges in federal and state courts, became the second defendant in the scheme to commit suicide in 2024 after being indicted along with Jones and Dowling and pleading innocent.
Before Randazzo became a top regulator, he was a consultant to clients who were working with FirstEnergy and wanted to get a better deal from them (he was also a consultant for FirstEnergy). Randazzo kept books for Industrial Energy Users-Ohio, a legal trade group.
The defense said FirstEnergy was simply repaying funds to the former PUCO chair owed to IEU-Ohio clients like witness Matt Brakey, but Randazzo stole that money from them.
“The organization was victimized on quite a large scale… There was no rational explanation for it other than misappropriation of the organization’s funds,” Brakey stated on the stand.
The defense said the money was never intended for Randazzo and the men never knew about the alleged bribe.
According to his lawyer, Jones allegedly played no role in facilitating the settlement, but Yeboah-Amankwah testified otherwise.
“The decision has been deferred to Chuck,” she said.
The evidence supports Yeboah-Amankwah’s testimony that she was not in town when the defendants signed the plea agreement.
The judge several times allowed witnesses to refuse to be recorded or photographed. Our media partners in Akron Beacon Journal he further provided information on the testimony of these witnesses, such as former FirstEnergy lawyer Mark Hayden.
The Beacon Journal reported that Hayden said Randazzo apparently had a conflict of interest and said the details of the settlement were “so ambiguous” that they couldn’t mean anything.
What’s to come
Jurors will not be told that FirstEnergy as a company has already pleaded guilty to bribery.
Major political leaders such as Gov. Mike DeWine and Republican U.S. Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio could testify.
The process should last another four to six weeks.
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This article was originally published on News5Cleveland.com and are published in the Ohio Capital Journal under a content sharing agreement. Unlike other OCJ articles, it is not available for free republication on other news outlets because it is owned by WEWS in Cleveland.
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