WHIOTV.com (Dayton): 4 More Charged, Sentenced In Teachers Retirement Fund Investigation

POSTED: 3:50 pm EDT September 19, 2006

UPDATED: 4:02 pm EDT September 19, 2006

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A long-running investigation at the State Teachers Retirement System has produced criminal ethics charges against two former board members and one top staffer.

Now, four more former board members are facing charges in Franklin County.

One by one the four entered pleas, and the judge found them guilty of illegally accepting gifts from a company doing business with the retirement fund.

The board members had accepted, among other gifts, tickets to a Broadway show. Two members’ attorneys call the charges unfair.

Ritchey Hollenbaugh said, “I think that it is clearly overkill. The system is unfair to people who make an inadvertent mistake.”

State authorities said the board members knew what they were doing.

NewsCenter 7’s Jim Otte said the investigation is far from over. Investigators are looking at former and current employees.

The former board members were ordered to pay a fine and were sentenced to community service.