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Sam Randazzo, former top utility regulator accused of taking $4.3 million bribe, found dead

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Sam Randazzo, former top utility regulator accused of taking .3 million bribe, found dead


COLUMBUS, Ohio – A former top state utility regulator accused of taking a $4.3 million bribe was found dead Tuesday.

Sam Randazzo was pronounced dead just before noon by the Columbus Division of Fire, according to a spokesman for the Franklin County Coroner’s office. He was found by police unresponsive, hanging by a rope in the rafters of a Columbus property. The coroner’s spokesman said it is a suspected death by suicide but will be confirmed in an autopsy.

Randazzo, 74, is the former chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio and has been indicted in both federal and state court for taking bribes from Akron-based FirstEnergy.

Randazzo’s death follows an epic fall from grace. In 2018, he was on his way to retirement after a storied career as a utility lawyer, representing industrial energy users seeking cheaper electricity prices. But following the election of Gov. Mike DeWine, Randazzo applied, and was later appointed to serve as the chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.

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According to both state and federal prosecutors, it was around that time that he accepted a $4.3 million bribe. He has acknowledged receiving the payment but pleaded not guilty to felony charges, insisting the money was an obligatory term of a contractual arrangement. FirstEnergy admitted to paying the bribe in a deferred prosecution agreement in exchange for favorable treatment at the PUCO. Randazzo faced up to 20 years in prison.

While neither judge nor jury has made any finding on those allegations, Randazzo recently lost several important legal battles. The Ohio Supreme Court allowed Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost to freeze millions in his assets before trial. A federal judge denied his attempt to move the trial from Cincinnati to his hometown in Columbus.

Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer reached out to Roger Sugarman, his attorney.

Along with Randazzo, FirstEnergy has also admitted to bribing ex-House Speaker Larry Householder with millions of dollars in exchange for the passage of House Bill 6, legislation that charged ratepayers to bail out nuclear plants owned at the time by FirstEnergy. Householder has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. Co-conspirator Matt Borges, a lobbyist, is serving a five year sentence as well. Two other men pleaded guilty to racketeering and testified as government witnesses. A fifth, Neil Clark, died by suicide in early 2021.

DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney declined to comment Tuesday evening.

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Jennifer Young, a spokeswoman for FirstEnergy, said the company is “saddened to hear of this tragic news.”

Jake Zuckerman covers state politics and policy for Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.



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Cleveland Homicide Unit investigates early morning shooting near bars

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Cleveland Homicide Unit investigates early morning shooting near bars


CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) – The Cleveland Division of Police responded to a report of shots fired early Sunday morning.

The Fourth District officers responded to 3547 E 93rd St. at approximately 3 a.m., near the VSP Lounge Inc and Skeets Bar.

Police said when arriving to the scene, officers located a man lying near the entrance of the location.

The man was unresponsive and wasn’t breathing.

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Cleveland EMS responded and pronounced the 24-year-old man deceased on scene.

Cleveland police said three adult men with gunshot wounds arrived separately at three area hospitals with non-life threatening injuries.

There are no suspects who have been identified at this time.

The Cleveland Police Homicide Unit is investigating.

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Snow keeps stacking up: See early city-by-city totals as parts of NE Ohio near 8 inches

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Snow keeps stacking up: See early city-by-city totals as parts of NE Ohio near 8 inches


CLEVELAND, Ohio — Snow piled up fast across parts of Northeast Ohio over the past 24 hours, with some snowbelt communities already seeing 6 to 8 inches even as lake-effect snow continues to fall.

Those totals, released by the National Weather Service on Sunday morning, reflect snowfall from Saturday into early Sunday.

Reports collected between 6 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. Sunday showed 7 inches near Strongsville, 6 inches near Bath, and 7.5 inches near Newbury in Geauga County.

Those early totals, however, do not tell the full story. Lake-effect snow remains ongoing Sunday and is expected to continue into Monday, meaning additional accumulation is likely in many areas.

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Forecasters say snow will be steady to heavy at times through Sunday evening, as cold, moisture-rich air remains locked over Lake Erie.

Many Northeast Ohio locations are expected to see 3 to 6 inches of additional snow through Monday morning, with higher totals possible where lake-effect bands persist the longest.

The greatest risk for heavier additional snowfall on Sunday — potentially 5 to 8 inches — includes northern Lorain, southwestern Cuyahoga, northern Medina and central Summit counties, along with portions of the primary snowbelt east of Cleveland.

Read more: Lake-effect snow machine continues Sunday: 5-8 more inches could hit some areas

Within the strongest bands, snowfall rates could reach around 1 inch per hour on Sunday, quickly reducing visibility and making travel hazardous.

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Gusty winds, with gusts up to 35 mph near Lake Erie, may also lead to blowing and drifting snow.

It will remain bitterly cold, with highs Sunday only reaching the mid-teens to mid-20s, and subzero wind chills possible at times into Monday.

Reported snowfall totals

(Measured between 6 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. Sunday)

Cuyahoga County

  • Lakewood: 2.7 inches
  • Parma: 3.2
  • Richmond Heights: 2.0
  • Shaker Heights: 2.5
  • Strongsville: 7.0
  • University Heights: 3.6
  • Westlake: 3.9
  • Woodmere: 3.8

Geauga County

  • Auburn Corners: 4.3
  • Middlefield: 4.0
  • Newbury: 7.5

Lake County

  • Madison: 1.3
  • Mentor-on-the-Lake: 1.6
  • Willoughby: 0.5

Lorain County

  • Amherst: 3.5
  • Avon: 3.7
  • Elyria: 2.5
  • Lorain: 2.0
  • North Ridgeville: 3.8
  • Oberlin: 1.0–2.4
  • Vermilion: 2.7

Medina County

  • Homerville: 1.7
  • Medina: 2.8–3.5
  • Spencer: 2.1
  • Wadsworth: 3.3

Portage County

  • Craig Beach: 2.0
  • Kent: 3.0–3.5
  • Mantua: 5.0
  • Ravenna: 2.8–3.0
  • Streetsboro: 3.4
  • Windham: 2.5

Summit County

  • Barberton: 2.5
  • Bath: 6.0
  • Copley: 4.2
  • Macedonia: 4.1
  • Munroe Falls: 3.5
  • Reminderville: 4.5
  • Stow: 2.5
A map shows snowfall totals reported across Northeast Ohio as of Sunday morning, after some communities picked up more than 7 inches of snow in the past 24 hours.Cleveland NWS



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Abrupt funding freeze leaves Ohio manufacturing programs with uncertain future

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Abrupt funding freeze leaves Ohio manufacturing programs with uncertain future


CLEVELAND — On Friday, Ohio’s Manufacturing Advocacy and Growth Network, known as MAGNET, learned that its public funding had been frozen, effective immediately.


What You Need To Know

  • Funding for Ohio’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership programs have been abruptly pulled, leaving six non-profits without $14.6 million in public funding
  • MEP programs aim to assist small to medium sized manufacturers grow and remain competitive
  • The freeze was announced due an ongoing audit, but local MEP programs says they have complied with the audit and the results of the audit have not been made available to them 

“I was initially shocked. Immediately after it, it was action mode: how do we get to all the people that understand how important it is and what’s at stake?” said Ethan Karp, President and CEO of MAGNET. 

“We help small and medium manufacturers, as a nonprofit, grow,” Karp explained. 

The Cleveland-based nonprofit has assisted local manufacturers for over 40 years. This includes helping them implement new technology to stay competitive, providing workforce training to help fill positions in manufacturing, and helping companies create prototypes. 

“That’s a start-up who has an idea on the back of their napkin that makes changing air filters easier,” Karp said. “This space we would actually prototype for those companies.”

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They get state and federal funding through Ohio’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program, or MEP program, which funds six similar organizations throughout the state that aim to assist local manufacturers. 

The funding freeze was announced in a letter from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the federal agency that funds Ohio’s Department of Development. The Ohio Department of Development is the department that runs the MEP program.  

In the letter, the NIST cites an ongoing audit as the reason for the freeze.

“Preliminary findings in connection with an active financial assistance audit being performed by the DOC Office of Inspector General (OIG) which identifies various instances of material noncompliance by the Recipient and/or its Subrecipients, several of which were confirmed by the Recipient or the applicable Subrecipient.” – Letter from NIST to Ohio’s Department of Development announces funding freeze

The audit of Ohio’s MEP program started over a year ago, and the results aren’t set to be published until Spring 2026. 

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The letter specifically cites three MEP programs for misreporting income. MAGNET is not one of the programs mentioned specifically in the letter. 

One program that is mentioned is the Center for Innovative Food Technology (CIFT). In the letter announcing the freeze, CIFT states:

“CIFT did not report 2.3 million in unreported program income on the earlier five-year award. CIFT has acknowledged at least 1.8 million is unreported program income.” 

CIFT President and CEO Rebecca Singer denies any wrongdoing and says the discrepancy is because of unclear guidelines about what a program should report as income.

“CIFT has fully cooperated with the audit and the statements are misleading and inaccurate,” Singer said in a statement. “Any issues that occurred were administrative in nature and we are prepared to address them once a drafted report is provided. There is consistency in the findings among the organizations further demonstrating lack of clarity and understanding on administrative reporting. Several OIG audits of other state programs have noted under-reporting of program income but they have been given the opportunity to counter findings.”

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Singer said that the typical process of an audit has not been followed, and CIFT did not see a draft of the audit and respond, which she said is the standard process for a financial audit. 

According to Singer, because of the freeze CIFT lost $1.6 million in public funding and, as a result, they are suspending operations on Monday, Dec. 15. Singer said 13 employees will be affected as well as 22 businesses that rely on CIFT’s mini food processing kitchen, which allows them to make their products to sell at retail outlets. 

With the freeze of federal funds, the state of Ohio has also frozen its portion of funding to the MEP program. 

In a statement, Mason Waldvogel, the Deputy Chief of Media Relations for Ohio’s Department of Development, explains that the state funding is tied to federal funding. 

“The majority of state funding provided to Ohio MEP partner organizations consists of matching dollars, which cannot be spent without corresponding federal funds. Therefore, the Department of Development has suspended the program at the state level.”

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The freeze affects roughly $14 million in funds to Ohio manufacturing nonprofits over the next year, with MAGNET receiving $5.9 million of those funds. 

Karp said MAGNET has been complying with the audit and is frustrated the freeze was started before there had been communication with the MEP programs about the findings. 

“If there is an issue, then you need to tell somebody there is an issue and give somebody a chance to fix it. In this case, there’s nothing for us to fix because we don’t know what, or if, there are findings and a report. That lack of transparency, that lack of process makes no sense,” Karp said. 

Karp said the funding cut-off will change how MAGNET functions, prompting decisions to be made about potential lay-offs of their staff of roughly 75 people. 

“We’re going to have to structurally make huge changes at MAGNET to continue at a much smaller scale,” Karp said. 

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According to Karp, approximately 35% of their budget comes from state and federal funding. The rest is from a private industry that pays for MAGNET’s services. However, Karp said they can only provide many of those services because of their public funding. 

“Helping people understand that the investment that the state and federal governments have been making for 40 years, this is a 40-year partnership — shouldn’t be turned off at a moment’s notice, depriving all these people and companies of necessary support.”

This funding freeze could impact the manufacturing sector in Ohio. 

“We’re saying we want to restore manufacturing? Well this is not how you restore manufacturing. This is not how you bring jobs back from overseas; we are actually going to be cutting Ohio jobs as a result of this decision,” said Jack Schron, President of Jergens Incorporated, a Cleveland-based manufacturer.

Schron sits on MAGENT’s board and has used its resources to test out Jergens products. 

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Micheal Canty, president and CEO of Alloy Precision Technologies, said the freeze will impact small and medium-size companies the most. 

“I think it will be devastating to manufacturing,” Canty said. “If MAGNET and all the MEP’s are gone, then a lot of those projects to develop and promote smart manufacturing and manufacturing in general go away.”

Karp said the irony is that MAGNET’s goals align with the current administration’s efforts to make U. S manufacturing more competitive. 

“I desperately want tariffs to help companies. Every single day I am out there talking about how we need to compete against international sources and how our companies need to be the most technologically advanced in the world. It is the same thing the Trump administration says, and we are totally aligned. So it is ironic that this is happening to us now,” Karp said.



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