In Cleveland and Columbus Thursday, Greg Hartmann, the beligered deadbeat Republican candidate for Ohio Secretary of State, was confronted in person by his Democratic candidate Jennifer Brunner with facts about his slim and shady private sector record and through documents presented to the Ohio Elections Commission in a case about lying about his personal responsibiity to make good on a court-ordered judgement against him.
In the secretary of state debate held at the City Club of Cleveland, one eye-witness to the exchange said they saw what appeared to be "the effective end of whatever chance Hartmann still had of winning this contest."
Today's damage began before the debate started, with the Toledo Blade publishing a strong endorsement of Brunner. This completes a sweep of all of major newspapers not located in Hartmann's home town: Akron Beacon Journal, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Columbus Dispatch, Dayton Daily News, Lorain Morning Journal, and Youngstown Vindicator.
And while the Blade's endorsement of Brunner constituted another big loss for Hartmann, a Texan now living in Ohio, another self-inflicted wound came through testimony he provided in a deposition regarding how a gang of criminals stole personal consumer information from Hartmann's clerk of court's website.
Adding to the bad news for Hartmann is the publication of his deposition from a lawsuit about his negligence in leaving consumers' personal identifying information exposed on his Clerk of Courts web site, which resulted in massive identity theft by a gang of criminals.
This deposition is devastating to Hartmann's claim of skillful management of the clerk's office, including as it does repeated professions of unfamiliarity with office rules and procedures and the scope of his own authority (for example, "Q: Who decides what records you maintain? A: I don't know").
After years of dilly-dallying over removing personal information from his website, even after he had been warned numerous times by law enforcement officials and others that people could have their identities stolen, 141 people became victims of identity theft as Hartmann delayed removing sensitive information.
Hartmann has sold Ohio voters a bill of goods, promoting himself as the protector of identity theft.
To read the full post, go here:
http://ohio2006elections.blogspot.com/
In a second case in Columbus, the Ohio Elections Commission (OEC) heard testimony about whether probable cause existed sufficient to go further in determening whether Mr. Hartmann had lied to the media about a personal debt he was ordered to pay by a California court in 1992 when he worked for a small airline service company.
Not willing to "make the leap" that everything an individual says is said on behalf of their campaign committee, the OEC, on its second motion, declined to find probable cause to take the matter further. One OEC member, William Ogg, did think there was probable cause, but his motion failed for lack of a second.
The evidence provided in the case by the Brunner campaign provided clear evidence that Mr. Hartmann had signed a credit application and a contract with Pepsi and did have a California court judgement against him for failing to pay in a lawsuit that he and his company were named in and lost.
An attorney representing Brunner's campaign committee provided documents showing that Mr. Hartmann, who in 1992 was 25-years old and the vice president of Air Distributions Inc., a company that sold soda and peanuts to the airline industry and that has since gone bankruptc, did make himself personally responsibility for debts incurred by the company when he signed both a credit application and a Pepsi service contract.
Fighting back with a flimsy defense to the undeniable evidence of legal documents bearing Greg Hartmann's signature, Hartmann's attorney tried to argue that it was a matter of corporate versus personal debt and that because there was no co-signature and no demand on Hartmann to pay the settlement costs, Mr. Hartmann response to a matter of 15 years ago, was fair.
Harvey Shapiro, a voting member of the OEC, looked at Brunner's documents and asked Mr. Hartmann's attorney, "Hasn't this already been decided?" referring to the Califnornia court-ordered settlement. Hartmann's attorney, whether he knew it or not, did a disservice to his client by telling Shapiro that "this is a matter of collections" and not for the OEC.
And while he tried to say Mr. Hartmann had not been regularly serviced, Shapiro, reading from Brunner's documents, shot back that Hartmann he had been regularly serviced. Brunner said servicing of his personal responsibility had been enforced in Texas, Mr. Hartmann's birth home.
OEC executive director Phil Richter, when asked by members for his opinion, said that while campaigns always speak for candidates, he was "not ready to leap to the conclusion" that individuals therefore always speak on behalf of their campaign.
And although the OEC found that there was no probable cause to take the matter further, the proceeding should alert Ohio voters to the fact that Greg Hartmann's shady past and slim business management experience should be reason enough to entrust him to faithfully and legally carry out the duties of the high office.
Here's Hartmann's deposition: http://www.truthaboutgreghartmann.com/
Here's Hartmann lying to the Dayton Daily News about shirking his personal responsibility:http://www.daytondailynews.com/search/content/oh/story/news/local/2006/10/20/ddn102006hartmannweb.ht
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