(We have cross-posted this on our
blog but it seems that Kos readers enjoy these Ohio revelations.)
For the Ohio GOP, when it rains, it pours. The Cleveland Plain Dealer late this morning reported that:
The Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation allowed Alan Brian Bond to continue investing $50 million of its money for at least 18 months after Bond was indicted on charges of taking more than $6.9 million in kickbacks that were billed to his clients.
The bureau lost $3.86 million in that investment, according to spokeswoman Emily Hicks.
Now, all this happened back in the 2000-2001 period, but it is just being made public now.
Bond, president and CEO of Albriond, was indicted on Dec. 16, 1999, the same day the SEC sued him, alleging that he had accepted the kickbacks.
Three weeks later, Robert Cowman, then the bureau's chief investment officer, told The Plain Dealer that the bureau had no immediate plans to stop doing business with Albriond, despite Bond's legal troubles.
But on Tuesday, Hicks said the bureau wasn't aware that Bond had been indicted until December 2001. That's when Bond was indicted on a second set of charges related to the cherry-picking scheme.
[. . .]
"Do we have to pass a bill that you have to do a Google search on each investment manager every month?" [Democratic State Senator Mark] Dann asked.
"Clearly, nobody was minding the store. There was no oversight of these investment managers," he said.
Surely you want to know a little more about Bond, don't you?
In 1997 and 1998, campaign finance records show, Bond and two of his associates gave $5,500 to Republican Ken Blackwell, then state treasurer; $2,000 to Democrat Lee Fisher, who was running for governor of Ohio; and $1,000 to Republican Betty Montgomery, then attorney general.