Cincinnati Post: Another guilty plea in probe of teacher fund

June 21, 2006
By Matt Leingang
Associated Press

COLUMBUS - A former member of the board that oversees Ohio's pension fund for teachers pleaded guilty Tuesday to accepting Cleveland Indians baseball tickets and other gifts from investment clients.

Jack Chapman, 59, the third former official from the State Teachers Retirement System convicted of ethics violations, acknowledged that accepting gifts from companies handling the pension fund's investments conflicted with his duties overseeing the system's finances.

Chapman, a retired Reynoldsburg teacher who resigned from the board in 2004, declined comment as he left Franklin County Municipal Court.

"Mr. Chapman felt that it was best to resolve the case and get on with his life," said his attorney, H. Ritchey Hollenbaugh.

Judge H. William Pollitt fined Chapman $1,278 and ordered him to pay $4,000 to the Ohio Ethics Commission for its investigation. He also was sentenced to three years probation, and a jail term of about a year and a half was suspended.

Prosecutors said Chapman has agreed to cooperate with their probe into whether current or other former retirement system board members and staff accepted similar gifts.

Chapman admitted he was guilty of three counts of conflict of interest for taking the gifts from 1998 to 2003, including a golf outing and a ticket to the Broadway show "Hairspray." The gifts came from Frank Russell Corp./Russell Real Estate Advisors and Salomon Smith Barney, now Citicorp.

Legislators passed ethics reforms after Herb Dyer, the retirement system's executive director, resigned in 2003 amid criticism that the system was spending millions on bonuses, art and travel even as assets plunged. Now, public pension funds must adopt strict ethics and travel policies.

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