A Judge…Found Wrong

An appeals court in Columbus has vacated an $8 million dollar freeze of assets belonging to the former chair of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, saying a judge wrongly granted the freeze sought last year by Ohio Attorney General, Dave Yost. A three-judge panel at the 10th District Court of Appeals issued a ruling…that Franklin County Judge Chris Brown abused his discretion when he granted the freeze on Sam Randazzo’s assets as part of a pending lawsuit. Randazzo is the subject of an FBI investigation regarding a $60 million dollar bribery scheme funded by FirstEnergy Corp. to obtain a $1 billion dollar legislative bailout in 2019 of two Ohio nuclear plants operated at the time by a FirstEnergy subsidiary. The Akron-based company acknowledged paying the bribes in a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice last year.