A Summit County judge is set to decide Friday whether lawyers for ex-FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones and a former top company lobbyist can continue to keep potential evidence and exhibits in their criminal cases off-limits to the public.
Former FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones walks to his arraignment in Summit County Common Pleas Court in February 2024 on charges that he helped bribe a former top state utilities regulator. His attorney, Carole Rendon, is seen on the left.
A judge overseeing the case is set to decide Friday whether to continue allowing defense attorneys wide-ranging power to keep potential evidence and exhibits off-limits to the public. COLUMBUS, Ohio — A Summit County judge overseeing the upcoming corruption trial of two former FirstEnergy executives is set to decide Friday whether to continue allowing defense attorneys unusual and wide-ranging power to keep potential evidence and exhibits off-limits to the public.signed last year by Ohio Special Assistant Attorney General Matt Meyer and attorneys representing ex-FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones and former top company lobbyist Mike Dowling, either side in the court proceedings can keep pretrial discovery materials secret until after the trial just by writing “confidential” on them. If the opposing side objected to something being kept under wraps, Summit County Common Pleas Court Judge Susan Baker Ross would decide whether it should be public, under the agreement. Attorneys for Jones and Dowling – who stand accused of paying a $4.3 million bribe in 2019 to Sam Randazzo just before Randazzo was named the state’s top utilities regulator – have labeled numerous pieces of potential evidence as “confidential.”Reports of experts asked by the defense to weigh in on the case, including ex-FBI agent Sherine Abadi and Gary Goolsby, an accounting and auditing expert who was removed as partner with Arthur Andersen in connection with the then-accounting behemoth’s role in Other filings submitted by the defense contain numerous redactions, including summaries of Strah’s comments and apparent assertions about FirstEnergy and the In addition, Ross has -- at least for now -- agreed with the defense’s attempt to keep secret several exhibits the prosecution has tried to introduce. Meyer has accused the defense attorneys of abusing the confidentiality agreement by arbitrarily keeping potential evidence secret, as it suits them. “By insisting on sealing any and all information that they believe might be harmful, it is Jones and Dowling who have pushed the balance far beyond what Ohio law requires,” Meyer stated Meyer has also criticized Ross for allowing Jones and Dowling such wide latitude to keep evidence secret. “They’re not VIPs. They are not special people,” Meyer told Ross during an Aug. 4 hearing. “They are criminal defendants like any other criminal defendant that comes before the bar, and the rules require that we do the public’s business in public forums, we litigate public issues with public evidence.”that Jones and Dowling don’t want to hide every document produced by the prosecution in their case from the public. Rather, she said, their goal is just to keep witness interviews, and summaries of those interviews, private until after the trial, so as not to taint potential jurors and influence other witnesses. Rendon noted that prosecutors sought similar confidentiality restrictions on discovery materials in a federal civil suit brought against FirstEnergy by a group of investors who lost money as a result of the House Bill 6 scandal’s effect on the utility’s stock price. She raised the prospect that, without a confidentiality agreement, much of the information that they’re trying to keep secret would leak to the media via that federal civil suit -- a possibility the prosecution says won’t happen. The state’s objections, Rendon stated, are “an effort to try this case in the media before it can be tried to a jury.”During the August hearing, Ross said she agreed with Meyer that the confidentiality issue “all of a sudden amplified beyond what I want to deal with. “This is a new one for me. I’ve never had a criminal case of this magnitude with a protection order of this -- you know, this stipulated confidentiality agreement and protective order of the documents,” she said. However, Ross also said that Jones’ and Dowling’s “reputations are on the line.” She also waived off Meyer’s contention that the language of the 2024 agreement -- which Ross signed off on -- doesn’t give the defense the ability to mark anything “confidential” that it likes, and that it’s up to the prosecution to convince the judge otherwise. “You guys entered into this agreement. I didn’t write this thing,” Ross told Meyer at one point during the hearing. Ross repeatedly said during the hearing that she wants the two sides in the case to reach some sort of agreement about what should or shouldn’t be kept confidential. In the meantime, she said, she’ll keep the evidence sealed. “Once we get to a trial, it can be all public, but maybe some of it needs to be under seal while you guys fight about some of this stuff, about whether it’s OK to go to a jury or not because you know that we’re just -- the jury’s -- everybody’s reading about this case,” Ross said. “Although,” she added, “I will say most people have no idea what I’m talking about when I mention this case, believe it or not.” Michael Gentithes, associate dean of academic affairs and a law professor at the University of Akron, said in an interview that it’s rare to see an attempt to keep so much pretrial information secret. However, he added, the overall nature of the dispute is quite common -- in court proceedings, one side often argues that details should be kept out of the public eye, while the other side complains that their opponents are going too far. “At some point, the judge will have to make a decision on that balance,” Gentithes said. “It’s just a difficult question for judges to answer.” Prosecutors say Jones and Dowling engaged in a years-long scheme to pay off Randazzo in order to secure favorable treatment from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.state that Randazzo at times overruled PUCO staff and other commissioners to secure policy decisions that resulted in a windfall for FirstEnergy. Jones and Dowling have pleaded innocent to more than two dozen felony counts, including first-degree felony charges of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, bribery, and telecommunications fraud, as well as third-degree felony charges of bribery, money laundering, and tampering with records. The two are set to go to trial next January. If convicted, they could each face a lengthy prison sentence.that they arranged to pay $60 million in FirstEnergy bribes to former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder to pass and defend House Bill 6, a 2019 state energy law that included enormous benefits for their company.Jeremy Pelzer has worked in the Columbus bureau of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer since 2013. Prior to that, Pelzer worked for Gongwer News Service in Ohio and covered government and politics in Illinois,...If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation.and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our
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