UPDATE:
Former Chair of Public Utility Commission of Ohio, Sam Randazzo, who you can see in the video above, has been found dead, of apparent suicide. This affair gets seamier and sleazier by the day.
Michigan’s Kevon Martis, also above, is well known as a “Senior Fellow” at fossil fuel “think tank” E&E Legal, and major opponent to clean energy across the midwest. It’s possible that testimony from Randazzo would have shown more light on Martis’ involvement in Ohio’s largest ever racketeering scandal.
Recent events made bells ring for me as I had recently interviewed farmers (see bottom of this post) and local officials in Southern Michigan about run-ins they had with goons from Ohio, during a Martis-lead fight over wind turbines a dozen years ago.
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The largest scandal in Ohio history has sprawled even larger, and has a connection to one of the fossil fuel industry’s leading disinformers, currently active here in Michigan and across the midwest.
New charges have been brought against former speaker of the Ohio House Larry Householder, who is already appealing a conviction carrying a 20 years sentence. Most recently indicted is Sam Randazzo (left, above), former Chair of the Public Utility Commission of Ohio, for taking 4 million in bribes, among other things.
Interesting video surfaced recently of Randazzo sharing the stage with Kevon Martis, a “senior fellow” with the Washington DC based E&E Legal, a lobbying firm well known for ties to the fossil industry and a history of threats and harassment against climate scientists.
Mr Martis is currently frontman for a high profile petition drive in Michigan aimed at placing a measure on the November ballot that would repeal recently passed clean energy siting reform, a center piece of Governor Whitmer’s ambitious climate and clean energy plan.
Alleged Bribester, fraudster, and grand thief, (among other charges) Randazzo introduced Mr Martis as a “hero” and an “inspiration”.
Important to say there are currently no charges against “Kmart” as we know him, but many are wondering if, as the charges mount up, Martis is getting nervous about what deals Householder, Randazzo et al may be cutting?
A former speaker of the Ohio State House of Representatives, now serving a 20-year federal prison sentence, was indicted on 10 more state felony charges on Monday in connection with a sprawling bribery scheme that handed a $1.3 billion bailout to a major regional energy utility.
The charges against the former speaker, Larry Householder, followed an inquiry by the Ohio Organized Crime Commission that also produced indictments last month of two former executives of the Akron-based utility, FirstEnergy Corporation.
The two men — Chuck Jones, a former FirstEnergy chief executive officer, and Michael Dowling, a senior vice president — were charged with funneling $4.3 million in bribes to the former chairman of the Ohio Public Utility Commission, Sam Randazzo. They and Mr. Randazzo, who was also indicted, have pleaded not guilty to a total of 27 charges.
The FirstEnergy case has been called the largest political scandal in Ohio history. Mr. Householder was convicted of accepting $60 million in bribes in exchange for shepherding into law a mammoth bailout of two unprofitable nuclear power plants owned by a subsidiary of the utility, as well as two coal-fired electric plants and solar energy projects.
Mr. Householder, 64, is appealing his racketeering conviction, which took place in federal court last June. Among other things, the new state charges assert that he illegally tapped a campaign account to pay $750,000 in legal fees for his defense and that he failed to disclose loans, debts, legal fees and gifts from lobbyists in ethics statements required of members of the state legislature.
The charges — three counts of theft, five counts of record-tampering and single counts of money laundering and telecommunications fraud — could permanently bar Mr. Householder from public office if convicted.
He had been investigated on suspicion of public corruption earlier in his legislative career, after a first stint as House speaker in the early 2000s, but that inquiry ended without charges.
“State crimes have state penalties, and a conviction will ensure that there will be no more comebacks from the ‘Comeback Kid,’” the Ohio attorney general, Dave Yost, said.
At a news conference, Mr. Yost declined to say whether more charges were forthcoming.
Some of the money personally benefited Mr. Householder, a Republican, but more dollars went elsewhere — $17 million for a media campaign backing the bailout, known as House Bill 6, and more for private detectives, people paid to intimidate those gathering signatures for a ballot initiative to overturn the bailout, and advertising to thwart that campaign, which was led by clean-energy advocates and the natural gas industry.
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I’ve bolded the passage above that caught my eye, about payments to thugs tasked with intimidating citizens who pushed back against the corrupt bailout.
Farmer and former County Commissioner Larry Gould participated in attempts to site a wind farm in Lenawee County, on the Ohio border, in the 2010s.
Gould told me about meetings where he would have his son come with him as a body guard.
“These people from Sylvania,(Ohio, just across the state line) they were wealthy people, and they could afford to hire people to give us a hard time.”
Farmer Jeff Ehlert told a similar story, of large numbers of intimidating individuals coming across the state line from Sylvania, Ohio, to jam into meeting halls in Riga Township, Michigan.
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