toledoblade.com -- Most justices sit out lawsuits involving Noe

COLUMBUS — On the same day a majority of the Ohio Supreme Court decided to sit out three cases brought before the court that involve prominent Republican fund-raiser and coin dealer Tom Noe, the Secretary of State’s office confirmed that it is investigating Mr. Noe for possible state campaign-finance violations.

“We have been closely scrutinizing Mr. Noe’s campaign contributions going back to 1990 for any anomalies,” said Carlo LoParo, a spokesman for Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell.

Five of the seven justices on the Supreme Court — all recipients of campaign cash from Mr. Noe — announced yesterday they would step aside and allow other judges to decide three public records lawsuits filed against the state concerning Mr. Noe’s rare-coin funds.

One of the justices, Judith Ann Lanzinger of Toledo, said Mr. Noe had been her campaign chairman in her successful run last year for the state’s highest court.

Mr. LoParo said the Secretary of State’s office has been “cooperating with federal authorities,” but added, “what we are doing is independent of any [other] investigation.”

The review covers contributions to statewide and legislative candidates, GOP party accounts, and local candidates across the state, Mr. LoParo said. He referred to the probe as “stan-
dard operating procedure” in response to published reports of a federal investigation involving alleged campaign-finance violations.

The Secretary of State’s investigation started shortly after The Blade reported last month that federal authorities were investigating Mr. Noe for possible violations of federal campaign contribution laws.

On April 27, Gregory White, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, confirmed that his office, working with the FBI, is looking into Mr. Noe, who was chairman of the Bush-Cheney campaign in northwest Ohio.

Law-enforcement sources have said the investigation centers on allegations that Mr. Noe illegally funneled money to the Bush re-election campaign through other contributors, side-stepping individual contribution limits. Of particular interest was an Oct. 30, 2003, fund-raiser in Columbus where the campaign raised $1.4 million.

Mr. LoParo said Mr. Blackwell’s campaign-finance staff has not found any “anomalies as of yet” in contributions made by Mr. Noe and his wife, Bernadette. Both are former chairmen of the Lucas County Republican Party.

Since 1990, campaign-finance records show, Mr. Noe has contributed more than $110,000 to candidates for state office.

The Blade reported May 15 that Mr. Noe has loaned $65,000 to the Lucas County Republican Party over the last three years, and the party has only paid back $2,000, records show.

During the last 15 years, Mr. and Mrs. Noe have contributed more than $200,000 to local, state, and federal candidates, parties, and political action committees — in addition to hosting fund-raisers and asking others to give.

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Justices recusing

Yesterday, Chief Justice Thomas Moyer, as well as justices Terrence O’Donnell, Maureen O’Connor, and Evelyn Stratton decided to join Justice Lanzinger in recusing themselves from cases, one of which was filed by The Blade, seeking uncensored information about the state’s rare-coin inventory.

The five justices, all Republicans, received a combined $23,510 in campaign contributions from Mr. Noe and his wife.

Because of recusals, Alice Robie Resnick, an Ottawa Hills Democrat, will act as chief justice in the rare-coin cases and assign visiting judges from the 68 sitting Ohio appellate judges to hear the cases.

Ms. Lanzinger recused herself May 11, said court spokesman Chris Davey. News of her decision wasn’t released until yesterday.

“Tom and his family have been friends for a long time,” Ms. Lanzinger said yesterday.

Both cases seek to have the court force the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation to release records regarding the bureau’s deal with Mr. Noe’s rare-coin funds.

Since The Blade first published on April 3 a story about the bureau’s $50 millon rare-coin investment, the state has come under increasing criticism amid reports of missing coins and questionable business partners.

The newspaper reported that as many as 121 state-owned coins are missing or stolen, and that one of Mr. Noe’s coin-fund managers, who caused the loss of $850,000 in state funds, has a felony record.

Since the revelations were reported, the Ohio Inspector General has said he will investigate, the state Auditor’s office has announced it will conduct a special audit of the coin funds, and the state Attorney General’s office has pledged to hire a rare-coin expert.

Contributing to justices

State campaign finance records show that Mr. and Mrs. Noe have contributed $5,250 to the campaigns of Justice Moyer and Justice O’Donnell; $5,000 to Justice Lanzinger; $4,510 to Justice Stratton, and $3,500 to Justice O’Connor.

Justice Lanzinger is a former Lucas County Common Pleas judge and Toledo Municipal Court judge.

Justice Paul Pfeiffer received a campaign contribution from Mr. Noe in 1990, when he was running as a Republican for Ohio attorney general. He lost to Democrat Lee Fisher by fewer than 1,000 votes.

Justice O’Donnell declined comment and Justices O’Connor and Stratton could not be reached.

David Goldbaerger, an Ohio State University law professor who has written about the First Amendment and campaign contributions, said the justices’ decision was “extraordinarily unusual” but also wise.

“It seems to be quite prudent,” he said.

Although campaign contributors routinely are before the court, the Noe case involves politics and implications of pay-to-play state contacts, making it a tougher issue for the justices.

“I’m not at all surprised,” Mr. Goldbaerger said. “I think it’s a healthy thing for them to do.”

The justices are not required to say why they recused themselves, said Mr. Davey, the court spokesman.

Justice Moyer would not discuss his decision to recuse himself.
In a written statement, he said: “Although I would be fully capable of judging these cases impartially, out of an abundance of caution and to avoid even the appearance of conflict, I have chosen to recuse myself because my campaign has received contributions from Thomas W. Noe, and this could be perceived as a conflict.

“It is not necessary for a judge to recuse himself just because an attorney or party has contributed to his campaign. However, this is a high-profile case with political implications and with potential personal consequences for the campaign contributor in question,” Chief Justice Moyer said.

Justice Resnick said justices normally do not recuse themselves because of contributions.

“All of the judges have often stated that simply because someone contributes, that is not a reason to recuse,” she said.

Justice Resnick said she had expected Justice Lanzinger to recuse herself because Mr. Noe ran her campaign.

“That is an obvious recusal. The others? … Many times, a justice prefers to recuse in order to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

This could be one of those situations because they accepted contributions and felt it was best not to sit on the case,” she said.

Justice Resnick recalled recusing herself from a case that involved a campaign treasurer. She also has recused herself on several cases handled by her husband, Mel Resnick, a retired state appeals court judge.

She said a high-ranking court employee is determining whether any of the state appellate court judges who could hear the cases have received contributions from Mr. or Ms. Noe.

Justice Pfeifer, a Republican who was first elected to the court in 1992, has not received any contributions from Mr. Noe during his bids for the high court. Justice Pfeifer ran unopposed last year to a third six-year term.

“I’m not hired to jump off of cases. I’m hired to stay on them,” he said.

Justice Pfeifer said he never had recused himself from a case because a party had contributed to one of his campaigns.

“My view is that alone would never be a reason to get out. Because if you start down that road, there is no stopping point. Plus, before you picked up a pile of briefs, you would have to have someone do a contribution check. I would feel tied in knots if that were the criteria,” he said.

Justice Pfeifer said he met Mr. Noe several years ago when Jim Brennan was chairman of the Lucas County Republican Party. He said he phoned Mrs. Noe either in 2003 or 2004 when he noticed that his name had been left off a list of GOP officeholders expected to attend a political event.

“She assured me it was an oversight,” said Justice Pfeifer, whose votes siding with Democratic justices and trial lawyers has angered some Republicans.

The lawsuits

Both The Blade and State Sen. Marc Dann, a suburban Youngstown Democrat, have filed lawsuits asking for details of the coin funds and their inventories.

Mr. Noe’s Maumee business also has filed a lawsuit in Franklin County Common Pleas Court in an attempt to block the release of records.

The Blade asked the Ohio Supreme Court on May 11 to order the bureau to release uncensored records related to its rare-coin investments.

The suit charges that the bureau violated Ohio’s Open Records Act by delaying release of documents requested by The Blade and only partially releasing others with information regarding specific coin transactions blacked out.

The Blade believes the state cannot determine the prudence of the investments without full disclosure.

The bureau has maintained that an inventory of coin holdings are exempt from the public records act as a “trade secret.”

Mr. Dann filed a similar lawsuit this week. In his suit, he has asked the court to also require the bureau to disclose the names of individuals and entities that sold coins to the funds.

Last week, the bureau announced it would end its $50 million rare-coin investment with Mr. Noe, saying it had concerns about the “ability of the managers to commit the necessary time and resources to make it profitable.”

Mr. Dann’s lawsuit, filed by Columbus attorney Frederick Gittes, names the bureau and Mr. Conrad as defendants. Mr. Dann said he is paying for the lawsuit, not taxpayers.

The Columbus Dispatch yesterday became the second newspaper to seek a court order to force the bureau to disclose details of its rare-coin inventory.

The Dispatch’s lawsuit, which names the bureau and its administrator/CEO, James Conrad, as defendants, said neither the state nor Mr. Noe’s Capital Coin fund had taken any “reasonable efforts” to maintain the secrecy of the inventory.

“That is, none of the Coin Inventory Records were designated or marked ‘confidential’ or as ‘trade secrets’ at the time of their creation or at any subsequent date thereto,” wrote attorneys for The Dispatch.

Contact James Drew at:jdrew@theblade.com or 614-221-0496.

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