The investigation focuses on whether FirstEnergy issued false and misleading statements regarding its business practices, internal controls and prospects. Specifically, FirstEnergy allegedly spent approximately $2.9 million on Larry Householder’s 2017 campaign. Householder became Ohio House Speaker in 2019 and allegedly returned the favor by enacting laws to support FirstEnergy's nuclear plants as well as a pair of coal plants. In total, political donations and bribes by FirstEnergy and other parties involved may have totaled as much as $60 million.
Householder and his alleged accomplices have been charged federally with “conspiracy to participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of an enterprise's affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity.”