Coingate in Ohio has been fairly quiet lately as investigations continue and the politics play out.
So where are we now ? Lot's of little interesting tidbits the last few days.
Jim Petro the Ohio Attorney General is trying to rehabilitate himself from his very poor (non existent Performance) before the story broke, as he sees his Gubernatorial aspirations crash.
So let's begin our story with the central character - Tom Noe, and Jim Petro below the fold
Update [2005-9-29 19:51:41 by Pounder]:Reform Ohio Now has it's
first TV Ad up online
According to a filing with the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, Mr. Noe bilked the two coin funds established by the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation through a variety of methods, including check forgery.
Mr. Petro has already accused Mr. Noe of running a Ponzi scheme and stealing $4 million, claims he backed up today with a series of affadavits that showed:
- Mr. Noe transferred money between the coin funds to show a false profit to the bureau.
- Mr. Noe used money from the coin funds to purchase a Catawba Island vacation home from his father in-law, retired Lucas County judge Francis "Buddy" Restivo.
- Mr. Noe forged a $110,000 check with the name of a fellow member of the Ohio Board of Regents, Gerry Gordon. He used the check to route bureau money to a bank account he shared with his wife, Bernadette Noe.
William Wilkinson, a lawyer for Mr. Noe, did not return a phone call asking for comment.
Tom Noe is going to jail - and probably for quite a long time. But what is more fun is why Petro needed to file this, because a short while ago he got told to
STFU by a judge.
COLUMBUS - Judge David Cain has a message for Attorney General Jim Petro: Stop saying the court has determined that Tom and Bernadette Noe stole millions of dollars from the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation's rare-coin funds.
Judge Cain of Franklin County Common Pleas Court chastised the attorney general in a footnote to a Tuesday ruling, saying he would "appreciate it" if Mr. Petro stopped characterizing an August order by the judge as a determination from the court that the Noes committed fraud or converted bureau money for personal use.
In August, Judge Cain said evidence already presented "tends to show" fraud by Mr. Noe, but the judge expected more facts would be revealed that would help prove or disprove allegations against the coin dealer.
In the meantime, Mr. Petro's office has released statements claiming that the court has acknowledged "credible evidence" of fraud by Mr. Noe.
It's funny when they turn on their own campaign contributors, huh ?
the other interesting tidbit buried in that story is this
The attorney general's office has released invoices that showed Mrs. Noe's former law firm, Shindler, Neff, Holmes, & Schlageter, had billed coin-fund subsidiaries for legal work, but all of the details in the billings were blacked out.
"Mrs. Noe cannot adequately prepare a defense without having full disclosure of evidence against her," Judge Cain wrote in his ruling.
The real unredacted copies have been ordered to be handed over. Curious why they would redact them in the first place, though Petro's office has been accused of pay for play when it came to legal work being handed out from the state.
One of the most obvious pay for play and reward schemes Taft had going was appointing buddies and supporters to nice jobs. One of those was now disgraced Brian Hicks, his chief of staff - who got a plumb job on the board as THE Ohio State University.
But the students are in revolt over it, and Hicks days must be numbered.
Student leaders at Ohio State University kicked off the fall semester with an effort to boot Brian Hicks, Gov. Bob Taft's former chief of staff, from the school's board of trustees.
During the summer break, Mr. Hicks was convicted of state ethics violations and fined $1,000. The Republican powerbroker, who now runs a Columbus lobbying firm, improperly reported below-market-rate vacations at Tom Noe's Florida Keys home in 2002 and 2003.
Nick Benson, speaker of the University Student Government Senate, said an undergraduate with a comparable ethical lapse, such as cheating on a test or plagiarizing a term paper, would be forced to leave school.
"It sets a bad precedent when students are held to one standard and the leaders of our university are held to different standards," he said.
These guys are making life-long Democratic converts for us !
Finally, Reform Ohio Now is being opposed by a shadowy group named "Ohio First". this is Ironic since they incorporated in Delaware as a religious organization, but pressure forced the to reincorporate in Ohio. They also don't even want to be associated with their own opposition
In what is an unusual twist in Ohio elections, voters can't easily learn who wrote the official language opposing four constitutional amendments on the November ballot. [...]
They also can learn who wrote in support of the four amendments. And they can find the opposition statements from DeWine, Jacobson and Finan, but their names are nowhere to be found -- something that Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell's office acknowledges is not common practice.
The arguments of both sides also will be included in 45,000 copies of Ohio Issues Reports distributed to libraries, county election boards and other government buildings and will be prominently displayed at polls Nov. 8.
And the unsigned arguments also will be part of legal advertisements placed in newspapers of note or record for each county by the local elections board. [...]
In 2003, DeWine was one of six state lawmakers who signed the arguments in support of Issue 1, a proposal to sell bonds for research and development. It failed. That 2003 proposal remains available on Blackwell's Web site, along with the arguments on both sides.
So unusual in fact - it has never happened before.
The funding for this GOP front group is also shadowy and we wont know where they got their money from until the end of October - just days before the vote, But state Senator Marc Dann (who has been doing an awesome job) has put them on notice (he sent them a letter.) From his blog
Dear Potential Ohio First Contributor:
For more than six months, I have been actively and aggressively investigating and exposing the scandals and corruption that have been precipitated by the pay-to-play culture of political favoritism that has been spawned and nurtured over the past decade by Ohios Republican power structure. In the course of my investigations I have encountered numerous instances in which large campaign contributors were rewarded with lucrative contracts, hundred of millions of state dollars to invest in risky schemes, or the enactment of legislation beneficial only to their interests. The media, a variety of public service organizations, and, most importantly, the people of Ohio, are, understandably, outraged by theses revelations and are demanding reform of the states political system.
Many of the needed reforms are embodied in the proposed Constitutional amendments that have been placed on the November 8, 2005 General Election ballot by a coalition known as Reform Ohio Now, or RON. The RON amendments strike at the heart of the corruption that afflicts state government by placing reasonable limits on campaign contributions, encouraging voting, guaranteeing the fairness of our elections, and establishing a non-partisan system for determining the boundaries of state legislative and Congressional districts. When enacted, the amendments will do much to dismantle the pay-to-play system and return control of the state to its people.
Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, those who have prospered under the existing corrupt system are actively engaged in fighting the RON amendments. Operating under the banner of Ohio First, they began by filing a number of specious lawsuits in an attempt to prevent Ohioans from having the opportunity to vote on the issues. Now that those suits have been dismissed, they are raising funds to wage a campaign against these well-reasoned and much needed reforms.
I am writing to you today because you may well be asked to make sizeable contributions to this group something you can, obviously, choose to do or not and to inform you that I and others who are concerned about the scandals that have rocked state government will be monitoring the fundraising activities of Ohio First both now and in the future. I assure you that we will not hesitate to speak out loudly and often if it becomes apparent that Ohio First is nothing more than another arm of the Republican pay-to-play operation in which contributions made to the anti-reform campaign are rewarded in the General Assembly, by members of the executive branch, or by statewide officeholders. If you are approached and asked to contribute to Ohio First, and you believe this solicitation represents either an overt or implied quid pro quo, please contact me or the proper authorities immediately so action may be taken to stop this type of activity. In conclusion, I would urge you to carefully consider the RON amendments and the beneficial effect they will have on the business and economic climate in our state by erasing corruption and restoring honesty to government.
Sincerely,
State Senator Marc Dann
Et en fin, If anyone has any reservations about how important issues 2,3,4 and 5 are (Reform Ohio Now) they only need read this
COLUMBUS - The latest series of ethics and campaign-finance reforms proposed by Democratic lawmakers met with an indifferent response from the Republican majority whose votes would make the legislation a reality.
DC, Texas, Ohio, Kentucky - the corruption is all the same.