The jury in the FirstEnergy corruption trial finished their seventh day of deliberations without a verdict, but they were pulled into the courtroom because the judge accidentally gave them documents they weren’t supposed to see. Of them, at least several pages of the state’s updated indictment document made it to their room.
The Summit County jury has been deliberating for a full week, trying to decide on whether former FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones and former SVP Mike Dowling are guilty of bribing former Public Utilities Commission Chair (PUCO) Sam Randazzo with $4.3 million to get beneficial rulings. Randazzo was previously indicted with Jones and Dowling, but killed himself after pleading not guilty in 2024.
Friday afternoon, Summit County Court of Common Pleas Judge Susan Baker Ross brought the jury in from deliberations, asking how many saw two exhibits that somehow made it into their file. The first was a “highly confidential” transcript of an interview that Assistant Attorney General Matt Meyer conducted with FirstEnergy board member James O’Neil from October 2025…