Coingate Perp Walks

The first folks convicted in the coin scandal

COLUMBUS — Two former aides to Gov. Bob Taft — former Chief of Staff Brian Hicks and his former executive assistant, Cherie Carroll — were convicted and fined by a judge yesterday for taking gifts from coin dealer Tom Noe — a political climber who golfed with the governor and sought audiences with President Bush.

Mr. Noe, over the 1980s and 1990s, worked hard to painstakingly chisel a powerful image — one for the governor’s staff to revere and for power brokers to admire as he spread hundreds of thousands of dollars across the state to Republican candidates.

There is going to me many more. Because the corruption goes deep

COLUMBUS - When it came to appointing a new trustee to the board of the Medical University of Ohio in 2003, the governor's office ignored doctor's orders and followed the advice of coin dealer and political confidante Tom Noe.

At the time, the choice of the school's acting president, Dr. Amira Gohara, was Geoffrey Meyers, an executive with Manor Care, a national nursing home company with headquarters in Toledo.

In a letter to Gov. Bob Taft on May 29, 2003, Dr. Gohara and William Connelly, MUO's general counsel, endorsed Mr. Meyers, saying he would bring "welcome expertise" in finance and reimbursement to the medical college.

But then Mr. Noe got involved, registering a complaint with Brian Hicks, Gov. Bob Taft's chief of staff in July.

Within a month, Mr. Meyers was out of the picture and one of Mr. Noe's friends, Carroll Ashley, was in.

Yup, That Brian Hicks, who was just convicted. Taft is up to his neck in it, and no one is buying his stories anymore. The Ohio Attorney General looks like he has his finger in the dyke right now too

COLUMBUS — In the two weeks since the Ohio Supreme Court ordered the state to make public the records of rare-coin funds managed by Tom Noe for the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, only three of an estimated 120 boxes of documents have been released.

Because of the slow pace of handing over the records, The Blade asked the Supreme Court yesterday to find the bureau and the two coin funds in contempt of court and requested that a receiver be appointed to take custody of the records.

Blade attorney Fritz Byers, in the motion, labeled the attorney general’s conduct a “disobedient refusal” to comply with the high court’s July 13 ruling.

Mr. Byers rejected state Attorney General Jim Petro’s announcement last week that he is “obligated” to review the documents before they are released to the public and the media.

“The Supreme Court’s ruling is clear and indisputably correct,” Mr. Byers said yesterday in an interview. “Neither the ruling nor any of the principles of law suggests that the attorney general or any other official can review the records to determine if the Supreme Court was correct in ordering that they be made public.”

In his motion before the high court, Mr. Byers criticized the attorney general’s attempt to review the documents before they are released.

“The position taken by the attorney general ... manifests either immense disrespect for the constitutional allocation of powers or an incredible tone-deafness,” he wrote. “The public repudiation of this court’s judgment by the state’s attorney general can have no other effect than a grievous erosion in respect for the rule of law.”

Petro took forever to investigate these crimes, and now he continues to stall at the very least. Why would he be reviewing documents before their release ? Given the level of corruption it makes one very suspicious indeed, and so too does this story, again from the awesome Blade staff

COLUMBUS — U.S. Attorney Gregory White, a leader in a multiagency task force investigating powerful Republicans in Ohio, asked for help from Gov. Bob Taft’s office to get the federal post he now holds, records released by Mr. Taft’s office yesterday show.

Mr. White asked the governor to call President Bush on his behalf in August, 2002. A week later, top Bush aide Karl Rove was given the phone numbers of Brian Hicks, the governor’s former chief of staff.
In February, 2003, after Mr. White was named interim U.S. attorney, Mr. Hicks sent a congratulatory e-mail to Mr. White.

“Great to hear! The Gov. just asked me this morning if I had heard anything about your status. He was pleased to learn of the news,” Mr. Hicks wrote on Feb. 2.

The e-mails show a relationship between one of the lead attorneys in Ohio’s biggest corruption scandal in decades and the governor whose administration is under intense scrutiny.

Mr. White could not be reached for comment last night. Both the Justice Department and the White House could not say what role, if any, Mr. Taft played in the appointment.

Looks to us that the Ohio GOP have the Foxes investigating who killed the chickens.

Comments

[The Ticked Off Ohioan]

Ha, I'm gonna steal your title and create a perp walk section at Coingate Central!

[Russell]

I am betting that section is going to get pretty full over the next 12 months as long as everything is investigated and prosecuted ethically.

[The Ticked Off Ohioan]

I know I can't wait!! ;oD