Columbus Dispatch: Ex-pension board members sentenced for taking gifts
Four former members of the State Teachers Retirement System’s board pleaded no contest or guilty yesterday to accepting $275 tickets to the musical Hairspray in 2003.
Their attorneys said their clients didn’t know they were doing wrong when they attended the musical with tickets paid for by an investment company working for the board.
But Paul Nick, chief investigative attorney for the Ohio Ethics Commission, balked at that claim.
"How do you justify your entertainment to be paid for by STRS? " Nick asked. "It’s not as if it were a working lunch."
Former board member Michael Billirakis was charged with two counts of conflict of interest for accepting the Hairspray tickets from Frank Russell Corp./Russell Real Estate Advisors and tickets to a 2001 Cleveland Indians game from Salomon Smith Barney. Billirakis resigned Sept. 15, about two weeks after he was charged.
Former board members Joseph Endry, Eugene Norris and Deborah Scott each were charged with one count of conflict of interest for accepting the Hairspray tickets. All four were charged with failing to report to the Ohio Ethics Commission that they had received gifts worth $75 or more.
In plea agreements, Billirakis of Pickerington, Endry of Westerville and Scott of Cincinnati pleaded no contest to one ethics violation. Norris, of Ann Arbor, Mich., pleaded guilty to one ethics violation. All other ethics counts were dropped.
The ethics violations are first-degree misdemeanors punishable by fines as high as $1,000 or a six-month jail term.
In Franklin County Municipal Court yesterday, all four board members were fined $250, assigned 30 or 60 hours of community service, placed on probation for a year and required to make restitution to STRS if they hadn’t already. Attorney H. Ritchey Hollenbaugh, who represented Endry and Scott, said the prosecution was unfair to board members who "made an inadvertent mistake."
"It’s clearly overkill," he said.
In May 2003, the STRS board went on a trip to New York City to review real-estate investments with representatives from Frank Russell Corp. During the trip, the board members received itineraries that included the musical and stated that Russell was footing the bill for the tickets, Nick said.
"If they had paid their own way from the beginning, it wouldn’t have been an issue," he said.
The ethics commission and city prosecutors have been looking into claims that employees from the STRS volunteer board and paid staff received freebies from businesses they worked with. STRS manages a $60 billion pension system.
A former board member and the former executive director of the system already have been convicted of similar ethics violations.
And more people could be charged, said Lara Baker, an assistant city prosecutor.
Retired teacher Mary Angeletti said yesterday that she’s pleased by the scrutiny the STRS board has received.
"They have this attitude of entitlement," she said. "It was our money that was spent."
ademartini@dispatch.com
posted by Kathie Bracy at 10:03 AM
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