Florida investor uses internal records to sue power company for alleged fraud [Video]

Jeff Kusmierski’s power bill keeps going up. The cost of cooling his Lee County, Florida home through the subtropical summer has spiked to more than $350 a month. Back in 2022, Kusmierski, 58, decided to purchase some $3,000 worth of stock in NextEra Energy, the parent company of Florida Power & Light, his electricity provider.

“I knew FPL was screwing everybody, I might as well be part of the show,” he said.

But a series of news stories published that summer and fall detailing alleged dirty tricks by political consultants working closely with FPL made Kusmierski fear for his investment. So he hired an attorney who used an obscure Florida law to demand access to the company’s internal records. And he got them.

Based in part on those records, Kusmierski filed a lawsuitearlier this month in federal court in Miami against NextEra. His lawsuit became the fourth to claim the company lied to the public and to investors about its political …