Ohio
FirstEnergy to pay $230M in settlement in bribery case
CINCINNATI (AP) — Federal authorities say Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. has agreed to a settlement that calls for the company to fully cooperate and pay a $230 million fine as part of a sweeping bribery scheme.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Cincinnati and the FBI are scheduled to hold a news briefing later Thursday morning on the deferred prosecution agreement.
As part of the deal to end the government’s prosecution, FirstEnergy agrees to make public all its related campaign contributions within 30 days, to pay a $230 million penalty and to continue carrying out sweeping internal changes aimed at preventing future corporate misdeeds.
FirstEnergy officials announced earlier this year it was in talks with the prosecutors on the agreement and that it could affect the company’s revenue.
The company has been accused by authorities of secretly funding a $60 million bribery scheme to help win legislative passage of a $1 billion bailout for two nuclear power plants operated by a wholly-owned subsidiary when the bill was passed in July 2019.
FirstEnergy in the last year has fired six high-ranking executives, including CEO Chuck Jones.
The dismissal of Jones, who initially denied any wrongdoing by the company, appeared to be tied to a $4.3 million payment that FirstEnergy made in January 2019, purportedly to end a longstanding consulting contract with a person soon to be appointed Ohio’s top utility regulator.
There has been no dispute the regulator was Sam Randazzo, a seasoned utility lawyer and lobbyist, who DeWine appointed chair of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio in February 2019.
Language in a lending document filed by the company that month suggested Randazzo helped the company after he became PUCO chair.
Neither Jones nor Randazzo have been charged.
Illinois
Lawsuit seeks return of Columbus statue to Chicago park
CHICAGO (AP) — An Italian-American organization has filed a lawsuit seeking to force the Chicago Park District to return a Christopher Columbus statue to its pedestal in the city’s Little Italy neighborhood, officials said Wednesday.
The statue in Arrigo Park on Chicago’s West Side, and two others elsewhere in the city, were removed last year after demonstrators swarmed a Columbus statue in Grant Park in a failed attempt to tear it down.
The lawsuit filed by the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans claims the removal of the Columbus monument in Little Italy violates a nearly 50-year-old agreement the group has with the Park District.
Organization president Ron Onesti says the agreement says any alterations of the statue or plaza must have the written consent of the Columbus Statue Committee, a precursor to his organization.
“Removing the statue last year is a clear breach of our contract with the Park District,” Onesti said.
At the time of the removal the Arrigo Park statue and the one in Grant Park, Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office said their removals were temporary and in response to demonstrations that had become unsafe for both protesters and the police. A third statue of Columbus, which had stood on display on the South Side for nearly 130 years, was removed days later.
The statues became targets during protests in the wake of the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd. Protesters said the explorer doesn’t deserve veneration because of how he treated Indigenous peoples.
Plaintiff’s attorney Enrico Mirabelli said the organization tried to avoid taking the Park District to court, but the contract would have been nullified if they didn’t raise their legal grievances within a year. He added the Park District didn’t respond to a letter the organization delivered the district’s board of commissioners.
“We never received a reply,” Mirabelli said. “We remain committed to finding a reasonable solution,” Mirabelli said. “But no governing body and no individual is above the law. When you make a contract you are expect to follow the terms of the agreement.”
The city’s Law Department declined to comment on a pending litigation and said it will review the lawsuit once received.
Georgia
New prosecutor appointed in shooting of Rayshard Brooks
ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s attorney general announced Wednesday that he has appointed the head of a prosecutors’ group to oversee the criminal case against the police officer who fatally shot Rayshard Brooks.
Peter Skandalakis, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, will serve as substitute prosecutor in the case against Atlanta police officer Garrett Rolfe, Attorney General Chris Carr’s office said.
The council is a government agency that supports Georgia prosecutors and their staff, including by providing training and professional development. Carr’s office described Skandalakis in a statement as a “well-respected, experienced prosecutor.”
Carr also announced a substitute prosecutor for a second high-profile case.
A judge last month granted a request by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to recuse herself from the case against Rolfe.
Willis, who took office in January, had argued that actions by her predecessor, Paul Howard, made it inappropriate for her office to handle the prosecution of Rolfe. She had asked a judge to determine who should handle the case after Carr twice rejected her requests to recuse herself.
Howard announced charges against Rolfe and another officer involved in the June 2020 confrontation with Brooks less than a week after the shooting. At the time, Howard was fighting to keep his job amid a Democratic primary challenge from Willis.
Howard’s conduct, “including using video evidence in campaign television advertisements,” may have violated Georgia Bar rules, Willis argued in a letter to Carr. She also noted that Carr had asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to investigate whether Howard improperly issued grand jury subpoenas in the Rolfe case. Howard has said he did nothing wrong.
Police responded on June 12, 2020 to complaints that Brooks had fallen asleep in his car in the drive-thru lane of a Wendy’s restaurant. Police body camera video shows the 27-year-old Black man struggling with two white officers after they told him he’d had too much to drink to be driving and tried to arrest him. Brooks grabbed a Taser from one of the officers and fled, firing it at Rolfe as he ran. An autopsy found that Brooks was shot twice in the back.
Rolfe has been charged with murder and other offenses. The other officer, Devin Brosnan, was charged with aggravated assault and violating his oath. Skandalakis will also oversee his prosecution.
Lawyers for both officers have said their clients acted appropriately. They are free on bond.
Rolfe was fired after the shooting but the Atlanta Civil Service Board reversed that dismissal in May. It found that the city failed to follow its own procedures for disciplinary actions.
Willis had also asked to be recused from the case against officers charged after Atlanta police pulled two college students from their car and hit them with stun guns while they were stuck in traffic caused by protests over George Floyd’s death. Carr said Wednesday he has appointed Cherokee Judicial Circuit District Attorney Samir Patel as substitute prosecutor in that case.
Video of the May 2020 confrontation — shared widely online — shows officers shouting at Taniyah Pilgrim and Messiah Young, firing Tasers at them and dragging them from the car. The pair can be heard screaming and asking what they did wrong. They have sued the city.
Ohio
Indictment: Man who hates women planned to kill sorority members
CLEVELAND (AP) — A man who identifies with a group that despises women appeared in federal court in Cincinnati on Wednesday on charges related to his plans to kill sorority members at an unidentified university in Ohio, authorities said.
Tres Genco, 21, of Hillsboro, Ohio, is charged with an attempted hated crime and possession of a machine gun in an indictment unsealed on Tuesday.
Federal prosecutors in a statement released on Wednesday said Genco identifies himself as an “incel” — involuntary celibate — and has interacted with an online community of mostly men who advocate for violence against women because they believe they are unjustly denied sexual or romantic attention.
The statement points to a 2014 shooting committed by a self-identified incel named Elliot Rodger, who killed six people and injured 14 others outside a sorority house at the University of California, Santa Barbara, before killing himself.
According to prosecutors, Genco frequently posted on an incel website in 2019 and 2020. In one post, he wrote that he had used a squirt gun to spray “foids” in the face with orange juice, something Rodger had done before the Santa Barbara killings.
“Foids” is the shortened incel term for “feminoid.”
Genco conducted surveillance at an Ohio university in January 2020 and wrote a document that month titled “Isolated” that he described as “the writings of the deluded and homicidal,” prosecutors said. He signed it, “Your hopeful friend and murderer.”
Local police searched Genco’s home in March 2020 and found a firearm with an attached bump stock — which allows it to be rapidly fired — a pistol, loaded ammunition magazines, boxes of ammunition and body armor.
Messages seeking comment were left on Wednesday with Genco’s public defender.
Massachusetts
Co-conspirator of former Fall River mayor sentenced
BOSTON (AP) — An associate of the recently convicted former mayor of Fall River has been sentenced for his role in a scheme to extort money from marijuana vendors.
Federal prosecutors said Hildegar Camara was sentenced Wednesday to three years of probation, including 18 months of home confinement. The 60-year-old Camara will also have to perform 150 hours of community service for each year of his probation.
Authorities sat Camara worked as a middleman for former Mayor Jasiel Correia, helping him obtain bribes from individuals who were working to open marijuana businesses in the area.
Correia, now 29, was convicted in May of soliciting the bribes and stealing money from investors in a smartphone app to bankroll his lavish lifestyle. Correia was first elected at age 23 on promises to turn the struggling mill city around.
Hildegar is a former county workforce development official. Prosecutors said his testimony was critical in their successful prosecution of Correia, who is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 20.
New York
$65M settlement proposed in lawsuit over polluted water
HOOSICK FALLS, N.Y. (AP) — Plaintiffs in a federal class action lawsuit could get payments and medical monitoring as part of a proposed $65.25 million settlement with three companies over chemical contamination of the water supply in an upstate New York village.
The Times Union reported Wednesday that under the proposed settlement, Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics, Honeywell International and 3M would be compensating plaintiffs who are current or former residents of Hoosick Falls for their exposure to PFOA, a chemical once used in certain industrial processes.
The residents of Hoosick Falls, northwest of Albany and close to the state’s border with Vermont, learned several years ago that their drinking water had been contaminated by PFOA, or perfluorooctanoic acid, which has been connected to cancer and thyroid disease.
Stephen Schwarz, among the attorneys representing the plaintiffs, called the settlement “an excellent outcome” and said it would “provide immediate compensation to property owners and establish a 10-year medical monitoring program for early identification and referral for treatment of conditions associated with PFOA exposure including cancers.”
Lia LoBello, a spokeswoman for Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics, said the company was “pleased to have reached a settlement agreement with the plaintiffs in the New York class action lawsuit.”
The preliminary settlement must be approved by a judge, after which notice would be sent to all those who could be members of the class, the Times Union reported. They would have time to decide whether to opt out or oppose the settlement, and then a judge would decide whether to approve a final settlement.
A fourth company, DuPont, did not agree to the settlement, the Times Union said, and the lawsuit against them is still in process.
