WBNS - 10TV (Columbus) coverage: Jack Chapman

Third person charged in teachers' pension fund probe

By JULIE CARR SMYTH AP

Statehouse Correspondent

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A former board member of the State Teacher's Retirement System was charged Monday with three counts of conflict of interest accusing him of taking gifts from investment clients.

Jack Chapman, who resigned in June 2004, was charged with three counts of conflict of interest alleging he took theater and sports tickets and a round of golf from pension fund clients. He's the third representative of the retirement system in less than a year to be charged with ethics violations.

The indictment accuses Chapman of taking the gifts from 1998 to 2003 from Frank Russell Corp./Russell Real Estate Advisors and Salomon Smith Barney, now Citicorp, while helping oversee pension fund investments the companies were handling, said Lara Baker, chief counsel for Columbus City Attorney Richard Pfeiffer Jr.'s criminal division.

Chapman is to be arraigned Tuesday in Franklin County Municipal Court.

He declined comment Monday, referring questions to his lawyer, Ritchey Hollenbaugh. A message was left Monday evening at Hollenbaugh's office.

Another former board member, elementary school teacher Hazel Sidaway, was convicted in May of similar ethics violations, and Herb Dyer, the retirement system's former executive director, was found guilty last fall of improperly accepting gifts.

Representatives of both firms have pledged full cooperation with the investigation begun in April 2005 after a referral from the Ohio Ethics Commission. The probe is continuing, Baker said.

Legislators passed pension-fund ethics reforms after Dyer resigned in 2003 amid criticism that the system was spending millions on bonuses, art and travel even as assets plunged. The new law requires all public pension funds to adopt strict ethics and travel policies.

The teachers' retirement system serves more than 410,000 active and retired educators with assets of about $54 billion.