Coin scandal seems like bottomless pit

[Robbien]

You have to wonder where and when Ohio’s coin scandal will bottom out. Every day brings fresh, jaw-dropping revelations:

• Toledo coin dealer Tom Noe’s original contract with the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation contained a built-in conflict of interest. The agreement allowed the coin fund’s managers to set their own prices for coins their private businesses sold to the state. Thus, businesses that were supposed to get the best deal for their client (the state) could profit as much as they wished. An auditor’s questions about the arrangement in 2000 were dismissed by the bureau’s chief investment officer.

• Documents released by Attorney General Jim Petro’s office show that Noe and the coin fund’s managers bought coins with state money, then sold them back to the state.

• Noe loaned other coin companies millions of dollars in state money and loaned himself about $1 million to pay off a business loan.

• Petro believes Noe stole $6 million for his own use.

• When Petro’s office began investigating the coin investments this spring, Noe hired “the same lawyer responsible for vetting the bureau’s investments and paid him from the state coin fund’s checking account,” according to Toledo’s newspaper, The Blade.

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