Lawyer: Ohio ex-governor’s record wasn’t expunged

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The Ohio watchdog’s office plans to
discuss Wednesday whether to reissue its report on a 2005 rare-coin
investment scandal after information surfaced that the document presumed
falsely that then-Gov. Bob Taft’s criminal record had been expunged.
Inspector
General Randall Meyer’s top lawyer said Tuesday that Taft’s no-contest
plea on ethics violations was omitted from mention in the long-awaited
report on Coingate, issued Friday, because staff believed the Republican
ex-governor’s record was among those shielded from public view.
"There
has been bunches of miscommunication on this," chief legal counsel Jim
Manken said. "We didn’t mention the conviction in the report because we
had Taft on a list of people whose cases had been expunged. That case
was not expunged. Those turn out to be false research results."
Manken
said there’s a "strong possibility" the Coingate report, already nine
years from the start of the scandal, will require a rewrite.
The
document included no new findings of wrongdoing but detailed the status
of 75 reforms at the workers’ compensation bureau that were recommended
through reviews at the time by the governor’s office, state auditor and
Legislature. Meyer concluded the bureau is "a much more professional and
accountable organization" today.
The convictions of Taft and four
others caught up in the scandal were not mentioned. Another 14 of the
19 total Coingate convictions were included in the report.
Bill
Meeks, Taft’s attorney, said he has no idea where Meyer’s office got the
idea that Taft’s record had been sealed or expunged. Taft asked Meeks,
who represented him in the 2005 case, to check on the matter Tuesday
after news reports of the expungement appeared.
Those were based
on Meyer’s statements that he was legally prohibited from mentioning
certain figures’ involvement in the scandal because their records had
been sealed, combined with the absence of any reference to the
conviction of Taft — the perhaps highest profile event of the scandal —
in the final document.
"Mr. Taft has never sought, nor is he
interested in seeking, an expungement of his misdemeanor record," Meeks
said. "So to the extent that there’s a news article out there to the
contrary, it’s incorrect and entirely erroneous."
Taft’s historic
conviction appears on the website of the Franklin County Municipal
Court, where Taft became the first Ohio governor convicted of a crime.
He is the great-grandson of former U.S. President William Howard Taft.
Taft declined to discuss the matter in detail when reached Tuesday, referring a reporter to Meeks.
"I’m not going to talk about that," he said.
The
scandal began with a newspaper report of a dubious $50 million
investment by the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation into a rare-coin
fund run by generous Republican fundraiser Tom Noe, of Toledo. Two coins
worth $300,000 were reported lost, and other investments were missing
or unaccounted for.
A web was eventually uncovered linking influence-peddling at the bureau to bribery, lavish gifts and
political contributions.
Taft’s
conviction involved failing to report golf games with Noe and other
gifts on required ethics statements. He served as governor from 1999 to
2007.
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