Columbus Dispatch: STRS Ex-official accused of taking freebies
The former president of the $60 billion pension fund for retired Ohio teachers was charged yesterday with accepting hundreds of dollars worth of tickets to baseball games and a Broadway show, among other freebies, from brokers doing business with the fund.
Jack H. Chapman, who served on the State Teachers Retirement System board from 1990 to 2004, plans to plead guilty to the three misdemeanor conflict-of-interest charges, prosecutors said.
Chapman, a retired Reynoldsburg teacher, is the third official of the teachers' pension system to face criminal charges in connection with the acceptance of gifts from brokers seeking business with the fund.
Hazel Sidaway, who served on the board with Chapman, was convicted of two ethics violations in April for accepting four free tickets to a Cleveland Indians game in 2001 and two free tickets to a Broadway production of Hairspray in 2003. She was sentenced to two years of probation, 200 hours of community service and more than $6,000 in fines and the cost of the investigation.
Herb Dyer, who resigned under pressure in 2003 as executive director of the pension fund, was found guilty last year of failing to report nearly $400 in free meals and a golf game paid for by a contractor working with the pension system. He was fined $700 and ordered to repay $394 to the pension fund.
The charges against Chapman involve some of the same outings Sidaway took: trips to Cleveland Indians games, a golf outing and Hairspray tickets.
Unlike Sidaway, who maintained her innocence after she was convicted, Chapman is cooperating with prosecutors from the Ohio Ethics Commission and the Columbus city attorney's office, said Paul Nick, chief investigative attorney for the ethics commission.
Chapman is due in the Franklin County Courthouse this morning to be arraigned on three misdemeanor counts for taking gifts from the Frank Russell Corp./Russell Real Estate Advisors and Salomon Smith Barney, which has since been acquired by Citigroup. Each violation is punishable by a maximum of a $1,000 fine and/or six months in jail.
Reached at his Reynoldsburg home yesterday, Chapman, 59, declined to comment and referred questions to his attorney, H. Ritchey Hollenbaugh, who also represented Sidaway and Dyer. Hollenbaugh could not be reached.
Investigators are looking into whether other current or former State Teachers Retirement System board members or officials took freebies from companies hired to advise the system on investments.
That investigation is separate from a broader probe into whether vendors who manipulated Bureau of Workers' Compensation investments did the same with the state's five public pension systems, Nick said.
State Teachers Retirement System spokeswoman Laura Ecklar has said there is no evidence that gifts to pension board members or staff influenced investment decisions.
"This is probably as far up as it gets," Nick said of conflict-of-interest charges against pension fund officials. "We also are looking at senior staff."
posted by Kathie Bracy at 7:13 AM
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