"Power Corrupts" #5: Death Threats Over Coffee

"Power Corrupts: Cleaning Up America's Biggest Industry" was published last Thursday and is now available nationwide at bookstores and online! Get the complete investigation that reveals the full scope of utility corruption across America. If this newsletter series has opened your eyes to utility corruption, please share it with friends, colleagues, or anyone who pays an electric bill.

Dawn Raid

Ohio's bribes-for-bailouts scheme became a full-fledged scandal at six o'clock in the morning on July 21, 2020, when FBI agents arrived with search and arrest warrants at Larry Householder's farm in Appalachia's Perry County. Wearing a gray Carhartt t-shirt, baggy jeans, and an N95 facemask, the speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives refused to make any comments, but his wife, Taundra, "barricaded" the house. According to a federal law-enforcement official, "It turned into quite a scene with her at the door and refusing to let agents in and some of the comments that she made."

War Zone Tactics

Utility scandals often have a dramatic flair. Subsidy supporters, as another example, paid "blockers" to surround and scream at signature collectors, preventing them from approaching and talking with voters to overturn the bailout legislation. A referendum organizer observed: "It (became) like a war zone out there. … Our employees were stalked. They were harassed. They were intimidated. Some of them were assaulted. It was quite something."

A separate leader of the anti-subsidy referendum became particularly worried when blockers confronted his elderly mother, who had volunteered to collect referendum signatures. She frantically called her son from a public library in suburban Columbus, alarmed that she had just been surrounded by three screaming counter-canvassers. Tyler quickly drove to the library and, fearing the blockers would follow his mother home, boxed in their parking space and allowed her to get into her own car and escape.

Going Undercover

That organizer also got approached by a utility lobbyist promising a bribe for information about the referendum campaign, such as where bailout supporters should send blockers to disrupt the referendum signature campaign. The FBI convinced that subsidy opponent to wear wires, which agents tucked into the brim of his dark blue Under Armour baseball cap and into a fob attached to a set of keys he would place on a restaurant table. "I'll be really honest, it was probably the most difficult thing I've ever done," the campaign organizer reflected. "It's not just awkward. It's terrifying."

In one recording, the utility lobbyist said, "We can take care of all those things [Fehrman's car debt and child support payments], I just need you to provide me with inside information about what's going on." On another, the utility lobbyist added, "Dude, I don't have a mortgage anymore. Like, I'm so taken care of. And we could do the same for you." Borges further admitted money was no object, describing FirstEnergy's payments into Generation Now as "fucking Monopoly money."

The Starbucks Shakedown

During one of their late-in-the-campaign meetings, at a Columbus-area Starbucks, Borges declared to Fehrman, "No matter what—don't ever tell anyone about our conversation." He added threateningly: "It would be bad for both of us if the story came out. But it would be worse for you." Then, after saying "You better not be screwing me," Borges warned: "If you're messing with us, we'll blow up your house." Fehrman, who once considered Borges to be a "close friend" and "mentor," told federal prosecutors, "I don't think it was a joke at all. … In politics, there's a lot of dark humor, but we were past that point."

To get a sense of this scandal's bizarreness, consider that outside this over-coffee meeting were FBI agents listening to their wire as well as private investigators hired by Borges to track Fehrman. According to a federal official, "We kind of joked that it made for a congested parking lot of interested parties."

Utility scandals, in fact, have become quite congested, but there's little funny about white-collar crime that causes economic harm and challenges the rule of law.

Why This Matters to You

This isn't just about billion-dollar bribes anymore—it's about what happens when you try to fight back. When ordinary Ohioans attempted to overturn the corrupt bailout through a legal referendum, utility money funded stalkers and harassers who targeted elderly volunteers and followed organizers home. The message was clear: challenge our monopoly and we'll make your life hell. This intimidation campaign directly affects your community's ability to challenge unfair rate increases, oppose dirty power plants, or advocate for clean energy projects. When utilities can deploy private investigators and harassment tactics against residents exercising basic democratic rights, it silences community organizing that could hold these companies accountable.

Next Week

How did utility corruption become so easy to get away with? Next week: How Supreme Court decisions opened the floodgates to dark money and made political corruption nearly impossible to prosecute. The transparency reforms that could stop this crisis before it spreads further.