Ask Governor Bob Taft to Appoint an Independent Investigator to Investigate Ohio’s "Coingate" Scandal

The fallout from the Ohio “Coingate” scandal, involving Thomas Noe, a rare-coin dealer and Republican financial backer, who is a major player in Ohio politics for years has reached beyond Ohio. Noe is at the center of a major scandal and is under investigation for the loss of up to $13 million worth of rare coins that were part of a dubious $50 million investment by the state workers comp fund he was responsible for managing. Now, Noe is a focus of a federal investigation in his role as a Pioneer for President Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign, responsible for raising at least $100,000 for the President. He is accused of violating federal campaign finance law by reimbursing donors who gave to the President’s campaign committee. While Noe’s beneficiaries are falling over backwards to disassociate themselves from him, Ohioans are waiting answers as to how their tax dollars fell through the cracks.

Given the wide swath of Noe’s influence in a state dominated by the Republican party in all branches of government, the only way that we can get to the truth about how accountability failed at every level is to enlist an independent counsel to investigate these serious allegations.

We the undersigned call on Governor Bob Taft to appoint an independent investigator to get answers to the following questions:

• How did state oversight mechanisms fail to discover the questionable actions and obvious conflicts of interest of a major party fundraiser with responsibility for investing state funds?
  
  
• Why did it take seven years and only after press scrutiny for it to come to light that taxpayer money was being dumped into highly questionable investment funds – rare coin collections considered a dubious investment by public finance experts.