Critics seek ‘Coingate’ report

Watchdog group asks state official to explain delay

10/15/2012

COLUMBUS — Ohio’s state watchdog hasn’t yet released an investigative report on the investment scandal that engulfed Ohio in 2005 — and critics want to know why.

With the presidential election only weeks away, the nonprofit government watchdog group Common Cause Ohio is asking Ohio Inspector General Randall Meyer to explain the delay and questioning whether it might be politically motivated.

Mr. Meyer was facing a threatened lawsuit by the nonprofit group when he pledged in February to complete the report left unissued by his predecessor.

The legal threat raised the possibility that the wide-ranging Republican scandal dubbed “Coingate” could re-emerge as a campaign issue in a key battleground state.

The Coingate scandal began in 2005 when reporting by The Blade showed that the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation was investing $50 million in rare coins through Republican donor Tom Noe.

Noe is now serving 18 years in prison for theft and other crimes.

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

Common Cause, which says it works to hold government accountable to the public interest, dropped the lawsuit threat after Mr. Meyer's February announcement. But it now wants him to ease the group’s concerns.

Common Cause Ohio Chairman Sam Gresham wrote in a Tuesday letter that because of the timing of the presidential contest and “because additional prominent Republicans have been rumored to be implicated in the scandal,” the organization believes an explanation is necessary “to prevent charges that the report has been withheld for political purposes.”

Meyer spokesman Carl Enslen reiterated that no timetable has been set for completing the report, but he said the office recognizes its significance.

The investigative work in the case was completed before Republican Gov. John Kasich appointed Mr. Meyer in January, 2011.

Mr. Meyer’s predecessor, Tom Charles, said before he switched jobs that the legally required report was coming.

The 2005 scandal reached the highest levels of state government, resulting in 19 convictions — including then-Gov. Bob Taft's no contest plea to ethics charges for failing to report golf outings and other gifts on his disclosure forms.

Democrats won four of five statewide offices in the November, 2006, election — including the governor’s office — in the wake of the scandal.

Ohio Democratic Chairman Chris Redfern also is pushing for release of a final report.

He said he still believes that Democrat John Kerry might have won Ohio — and the presidency — in 2004, had Noe’s actions as a fund-raiser for then-President George W. Bush come to light more quickly.

“I think the tentacles of this scandal go much deeper, much wider than anybody knows,” Mr. Redfern said.

“Yet this inspector general would rather chase after (state natural resources) employees who are selling excess propane than he would go after the biggest political scandal of this generation.”