Jim Petro: The Last Person in Ohio to Realize Tom Noe Ripped us off

Jim Petro held a press conference today to announce that he's going to get really tough on Tom Noe.

Unfortunately its too late.

The time to take action for Petro was in 2000 when he was Ohio Auditor and the audit of the the Capital Coin Fund I (The first of 2 $25 million Dollar investments) showed serious problems with related party transactions. Those transactions are detailed in 15000 pages of records that the Ohio Supreme Court ordered BWC to turn over to the Toledo Blade. All he had to do was look at the information and he would have been in a position then to stop BWC from investing another $25 million. He didn't do anything to stop his friend and contributor from ripping off the State of Ohio.

Even if he missed the 2000 audit (coincidentally,Auditor Betty Montgomery missed the 2004 Audit by the same firm showing $400,000 missing from the fund) if he had just filed suit immediately after the details of the missing coins were published in the Toledo Blade he could have recovered potentially millions more for the State of Ohio. Instead he waited 54 days. And when he did sue, he went hand in hand with Noe's Lawyers to the Courthouse.

Now he starts the chase of our money miles behind Noe. Better late than never.

Comments

[Steve Fought]

Jim Petro had thousands of reasons not to head Tom Noe off at the pass. They were called dollars into Petro's campaign fund.

It was Attorney General Petro's cause for inaction.

[Lisa Renee]

I'd suggest here as I have elsewhere that the Democrats should use the slogan

"Just say NOE to Republicans"

:-)

[Lisa Renee]

I apologize if this repeats as it looks as if the first time did not post.

My suggestion to democrats as written elsewhere is the slogan:

"Just say NOE to Republicans"

:-)

[Mike]

I'm astonished that Jim Petro continues to insist he didn't have grounds to sue Noe until mid-May. The rest of the world figure almost immediately after The Blade's first reports that this investment was a house of cards.

Now, we hear reports that there was massive cash and coin trading going on in the days leading up to when Petro and Noe's finally went to court holding hands. Perhaps if Petro had been more concerned early about doing his job than protecting a Republican benefactor Ohio would have saved tens of thousands of dollars.

[Prissy Patriot]

Jeb Bush...Shocking 'Coin Gate' Crimes and Murder Published on 02 July 2005 Source: TNC Staff Reporter FL
Florida Investigator Who Got Too Close to Florida "Coin Gate" Silenced by Jeb Bush's Gangsters

This is another missing link...oh my..it is the next to the last article down on site http://prissypatriot.blogspot.com

[I Noe Nothing]

Sen. Dann,

Thanks for your hard work in trying to halt the cancer of corruption that the Ohio GOP has inflicted upon your state.

The sleeze and fraud oozing from the Coingate scandal is almost unimaginable until one stops to realize that Republican politics have a long tradition of deceiving the public. That's what they do best, that's what they call 'leadership'.

Keep up the excellent work.

[Steve Fought]

What the Petro admission makes clear is that Tom Noe was using millions of dollars of state taxpayer money for his own purposes.

So why would he not use some of that money for campaign contributions to Republican candidates--starting with George W. Bush and including almost any prominent Republican you can name.

What a racket: get money from the Taft Administration, buy rare coins, sell the rare coins back to the state for a "profit," pocket the commissions, buy the coins back for the state, sell the coins again for a "profit" to a subsidiary, pocket the commissions, contribute to Republican candidates, loan yourself money, buy expensive personal items. Ad infinitum.

And nobody caught him. Nobody put a stop to this scheme.

Not Bob Taft, not Jim Petro, not Betty Montgomery, not Ken Blackwell, nobody in the Republican legislative leadership.

Amazing.