COLUMBUS—Ohio Inspector General Randall Meyer on Thursday reversed position and announced that he will issue a final report into the Tom Noe and the Coingate scandal at the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation.
When that report will be issued remains undecided, however.
The change in position came after the government watchdog group Common Cause Ohio threatened to sue the agency, arguing that state law required issuance of the report that led to the conviction of Noe, a former Toledo area coin dealer and past chairman of the Lucas County Republican Party, on corruption, theft, money laundering, and record tampering charges.
“Realizing the continued public interest in the investigation initiated in 2005 involving the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation and matters surrounding Thomas W. Noe, the Office of the Ohio Inspector General will publish a report of investigation,” the office said in a statement.
“Ohio Inspector General Meyer recognizes the assumed responsibility of the office to bring closure to this matter.”
It added that the office would have no further comment until the report is released.
“For years, we and many other citizens have been waiting to know what went wrong to cause these major problems in state government,” William K. Woods, chairman of Common Cause Ohio, wrote in a recent letter to Mr. Meyer.
“The previous inspector general indicated that a report would be forthcoming,” he wrote. “We believe that state law requires your office to issue a report on the Noe scandal to inform the public of the cause of it, to hold the appropriate state officials accountable, and to assure the public that proper steps have been taken to prevent a similar wrongdoing in the future.”
The Blade previously reported that Mr. Meyer had decided not to issue a final report, saying no one directly involved in the investigation was left in the office to write it.
Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien, a Republican, served with the inspector general’s office on a multi-agency task force investigating elements of the Coingate scandal. He said he was unaware a final report hadn’t been issued. He declined, however, to second guess the inspector general’s decision not to issue one.
“I understood, as everyone else understood at the time, that the issuance of a report before all court proceedings had been completed was something to be avoided,” he said. “But once court proceedings concluded, I thought that (former inspector general) Tom Charles was working on a report. I thought one had been issued.
“I was involved from top to bottom, from the beginning with a search warrant issued on the coin premises in Monclova Township until the most recent proceeding,” Mr. O’Brien said. “I’m not sure that there’s anything that I’ve been privy to that isn’t already on Front Street three times over.”
Noe is serving an 18-year state sentence in the Hocking Correctional Facility for the charges related to the theft of $13 million from $50 million in rare coin investment funds he operated on behalf of the BWC. His indictment followed a year-long investigation by The Blade 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 Party and state government.
Charges were filed 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.
First Published February 23, 2012, 10:38 p.m.