Top utility regulator resigns; FBI recently searched home

COLUMBUS » Ohio’s top utility regulator, Samuel Randazzo, resigned Friday morning, a day after the state’s largest electric utility reported to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that former executives had improperly directed a $4 million payment to the consulting firm of an official who fits Randazzo’s description.

Randazzo, 71, submitted his resignation letter to Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, who had appointed him chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio and the Ohio Power Siting Board in February 2019.

Randazzo said in the letter dated Friday that the “events and news of this week have undoubtedly been disturbing or worse to many stakeholders.”

FBI agents were seen carrying boxes from Randazzo’s Columbus townhome during a search on Monday.

“I regret that I must step away, but it is the right and necessary thing to do,” Randazzo said in his resignation letter. He also touted improvements he said he made during his time as chair of both agencies.

The FBI has not said whether the search of Randazzo’s home is tied to a federal investigation of a $60 million bribery scheme secretly funded by FirstEnergy Corp. to win legislative passage of a $1 billion bailout for two nuclear plants.

Until February, the plants were operated by a wholly owned FirstEnergy subsidiary.

House Republicans have pledged to have a resolution to House Bill 6 by the end of this legislative session, which ends Dec. 31.

At an unrelated news conference on Friday, DeWine thanked Randazzo for his service saying, “He has done very, very good work as chair.”

In the filing, FirstEnergy said former top executives had directed the payments in early 2019 to a consulting firm “in connection with the termination of a purported consulting agreement” in place since 2013. The payments violated FirstEnergy’s policies, the filing said.