Ohio Investment Scandal Reaching Beyond Workers' Comp
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A sweeping investigation into bribery for investment contracts at the state insurance fund for injured workers has returned authorities to familiar territory: Ohio's pension funds and the state treasury. The list of the top 10 to 15 brokers doing business with the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation contain many of the same firms that handle investments for state pension funds and the Ohio Treasurer's Office, Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien said Wednesday. He confirmed the state investment investigation has expanded to the Ohio's five public pension funds, as first reported in The Columbus Dispatch. "It would not be unexpected to see many of the same names arising [in our investigation]," he said. "However, whether there is anything illegal is as yet unclear." O'Brien's office is part of the large law enforcement task force investigating a state investment scandal that began with rare-coin dealer Tom Noe's contracts with the workers' comp agency. Noe is accused of stealing more than $1 million from the coin fund, and the former executive in charge of investments at the workers' comp agency says Noe bribed him to help secure the coin contract, which Noe denies. Terrence Gasper, the bureau's former chief financial officer, pleaded guilty in state and federal court to accepting stays at a Florida condo, money for his son's tuition and other gifts in exchange for doling out investment business. He was the first bureau official convicted in a yearlong political scandal in Ohio that has shaken the GOP-dominated government and given Democrats hope of regaining some offices, including governor. Prosecutors say more charges are expected this month. In 2004, a trio of associates of then-Ohio Treasurer Joseph Deters was convicted in a pay-to-play scandal at that office in which preferential treatment of brokers was linked to campaign giving. In August, the former chairman of the Ohio Police and Fire Pension Board pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor ethics violations over receiving and improperly reporting similar gifts. The former executive director of the State Teachers Retirement System, Herb Dyer, was found guilty last fall of accepting golf outings and other gifts from a firm that advised the fund on its investments. He was forced to resign in 2003. In April, STRS board member Hazel Sidaway was convicted of ethics violations for taking gifts from clients of the pension fund while she oversaw their contracts. "There are a number of retirees who have been wondering when other former board members would be charged for doing the same things Hazel Sidaway did. It's common knowledge those things happened," said Dennis Leone, a retired superintendent named to the teachers' pension board after the scandal. But a 2005 voluntary audit by at least one of the state's pension funds -- the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System -- found that a new, more stringent ethics policy adopted in 2002 significantly reduced gift-giving to employees. The review found that before the policy members of the investment staff were regularly wined and dined by those doing business with OPERS, and afterward such occurrences had fallen to a minimum. Aristotle Hutras, executive director of the Ohio Retirement Study Council that oversees Ohio's pension funds, said the systems would continue to cooperate with law enforcement. ______ Ohio's public pension funds and the amounts of money they manage:
State Teachers Retirement System, $54.6 billion
Ohio Police & Fire Pension Fund, $9.8 billion
School Employees Retirement System, $8.6 billion
Highway Patrol Retirement System, $700 million
(Source: The Columbus Dispatch)
posted by Kathie Bracy at 11:59 PM
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