State: No final report in Noe case

Ohio Democratic Party leader questions official's response

Tom Noe is trying to have his conviction thrown out through a federal civil rights claim.

COLUMBUS -- Six years after Tom Noe was convicted of stealing from a $50 million rare-coin and collectibles investment he managed for Ohio's workers' compensation system, the state's top watchdog said Wednesday no final report on the investigation will be issued.

Noe, a former Toledo-area coin dealer and past chairman of the Lucas County Republican Party, is serving an 18-year state prison sentence after he was convicted in 2006 of 29 charges of corruption, theft, money laundering, and record tampering. He was ordered to pay $13.7 million in restitution to the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation.

"Right now, the stuff coming out of the courts is finished," Deputy Inspector General Carl Enslen said. "We do not plan on issuing a report out of this office. There's nobody here who was really involved in the case. The next process is to get the files in order so that we can make them accessible as needed. The only concern is with those items with the grand jury that are restricted for release."

Noe's conviction was upheld by the 6th District Court of Appeals in December, 2009, and the Ohio Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal six months later. His state appeals finished, he's trying to open an avenue to overturn his convictions through a federal civil rights claim pending in U.S. District Court in Toledo.

His indictment and convictions followed a year-long investigation by The Blade that uncovered missing and stolen coins, massive mismanagement of the state coin funds, and a web of influence-peddling that Noe created in the local and state Republican Party and state government.

The stories were followed by criminal charges against top GOP lawmakers in Toledo and Columbus, including then-Gov. Bob Taft, whose conviction for failing to disclose gifts was a first for a sitting Ohio governor.

Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern has been clamoring for release of the report since before Tom Charles left the post of inspector general to become Gov. John Kasich's director of public safety early last year. Mr. Charles had said at the time that a report would not be issued while investigations remained open.

Mr. Redfern wasn't buying Mr. Enslen's explanation.

"It's just laughable on its face," he said. "The director of public safety was inspector general. Walk across the hall and talk to Tom Charles. I don't accept the reason that there's no one left to do the case report."

He said Mr. Kasich should demand that Mr. Meyer issue a final report. Mr. Redfern said he is eager to learn whether other public figures were involved in decisions to turn over BWC money to Noe, a major GOP fund-raiser on the state and national stages.

"The fundamental difficulty here is that Tom Charles, in the course of six weeks, destroyed the reputation of [former public safety director] Cathy Collins Taylor and issued a report, all because of a pack of cigarettes being thrown over a fence."

Mr. Redfern was referring to an administrative decision higher up in the department of public safety to kill a planned sting operation in 2010 at the Governor's Residence. The sting was focused on an apparent scheme to transfer contraband, believed to be cigarettes, to be carried by inmates working there back to their prison while Ted Strickland was governor.

"How can the inspector general just not have an opinion on the biggest investigation of the last 40 or 50 years?" Mr. Redfern asked.

Noe began serving his state sentence in Hocking Correctional Facility in December, 2008, after finishing two years in federal prison for laundering illegal contributions to then President George W. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign. The federal probe had overlapped with the investigation into Noe's state crimes.

In June, Toledo lawyer Rick Kerger filed on Noe's behalf a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in U.S. District Court in Toledo against the Hocking warden where Noe is serving his state sentence. The petition raises three claims for relief, including allegations against the trial court of improper denial of the motion to change venue, improper allowance of the state's experts, and improper denial of the defendant's experts.

The case was randomly assigned to Judge John Adams in Akron and referred to Magistrate Kathleen Burke.

The Ohio Attorney General's office filed a response to the petition opposing the release, saying Noe failed to demonstrate that he was denied a fair trial. Specifically, the state said that Noe's three arguments, similar to those raised during his state appeals, did not meet the required standards.

In an order signed Wednesday, Magistrate Burke noted that the documents previously filed by attorneys would be what she relied on to judge the "merits of the petition" unless either party requested the opportunity to offer more information. Any request to supplement the record would have to be made within 30 days, she added.

Staff writer Erica Blake contributed to this report.

Contact Jim Provance at: jprovance@theblade.com, or 614-221-0496.