From Edward Siedle, Pension Warriors

(A true story)

June 26, 2024

When Ohio Teachers State Pension Used Gestapo-Like Tactics To Intimidate An SEC Whistleblower

An invalid late night subpoena demanding documents within hours to scare a whistleblower who reported possible state pension wrongdoing to the SEC and others.

On the evening of August 24th, I was laying in bed in my home in Florida suffering from an upper respiratory illness—an infection that would ultimately take weeks to overcome. At 8:43 p.m., I heard pounding on the front door. Unsteady on my feet, I staggered into the dark living room where I could see car lights shining menacingly through the glass doors. A man stood outside the automobile, as the engine ran.

“What do you want and how did you get pass the security guards at the gate unannounced?” I asked in bewilderment.

“I am a process server and I am here to serve you with a subpoena from the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio,” he said. “In Florida, the law now states that security guards have to admit process servers into gated communities for valid subpoenas.”

Well, this was no valid subpoena. The subpoena duces tecum required that I appear the following morning at 10 a.m. with copies of documents in hand related to a lawsuit brought by teachers against STRS Ohio regarding the Cost of Living Adjustment the pension had eliminated years earlier. To be clear, I had never read or reviewed the lawsuit or advised anyone, anywhere about it. I knew nothing more than the fact that a lawsuit concerning the COLA apparently existed.

Yet, if I failed to appear or furnish the records requested by 10 a.m. the following morning, the subpoena threatened, I could be held in contempt of court.

On the one hand, it was comical.

This was the very same $90 billion state teachers pension—with a staff of hundreds—which I had been suing for nearly 3 years for failing to release to the public records related to its riskiest, highest-cost private equity investments.

Documents—the pension has admitted it possesses—which may detail billions in looting by Wall Street, the pension has resisted providing to stakeholders, including teachers whose retirement security is at risk and taxpayers, for years. Yet documents regarding a lawsuit against STRS Ohio—which I had no knowledge of—the pension demanded be delivered in hours.

Documents which may detail billions in looting by Wall Street, the pension has resisted providing to stakeholders for years. Yet documents regarding a lawsuit against STRS Ohio, the pension demanded be delivered in hours

But when you look beyond the absurdity of STRS Ohio’s recklessness last year, it’s scary.

The forensic investigation of STRS Ohio I conducted in 2021, entitled The High Cost of Secrecy, exposed massive mismanagement and potential violations of state and federal law which I reported to state and federal authorites as a whistleblower. Intimidation and retaliation against whistleblowers is generally illegal. Whether intentional or not, few would dispute that being compelled to appear in a court of law with reams of documents within hours of receiving a late night subpoena is intimidating.

The High Cost Of Secrecy Preliminary Findings Of Forensic Investigation Strs Ohio 2021 (3)
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Intimidation and retaliation against whistleblowers is generally illegal. Whether intentional or not, few would dispute that being compelled to appear in a court of law with reams of documents within hours of receiving a late night subpoena is intimidating.

When a $90 billion state teachers pension—with a staff of hundreds—hunts you down in the middle of night with a bogus subpoena, it’s alarming.

When a $90 billion state teachers pension—with a staff of hundreds—hunts you down in the middle of night with a bogus subpoena, it’s alarming. 

The bogus subpoena also requested any communications with STRS board members regarding any matter whatsoever.

The bogus subpoena I was handed also requested any communications I had with STRS board members regarding any matter whatsoever. 

With respect to documents related to its board of directors, the most expeditious means of obtaining any such documents presumably would have been to ask the board members directly. Since the board members had an on-going fiduciary relationship to the pension, presumably they would have been forthcoming.

Why would a pension fund in Ohio bother a private citizen in Florida for documents readily available from its board members? The answer is that, last year, a growing number of its board members had been pressing for transparency and reforms which pension investment staff and others—including Ohio politicians and their financial backers on Wall Street—oppose. The bogus subpoena was part of a fishing expedition targeting and intimidating those board members—it had nothing to do with any legitimate COLA lawsuit discovery.

Today the transparency reform members have control of the STRS Ohio board. However, the Governor, Attorney General and virtually every other Ohio politician are working feverishly to undo the recent election results and thwart widely-popular transparency initiatives. In Ohio, it seems, politicians are far more interested in using state pension assets to attract Wall Street political contributions than prudent management of workers’ retirement savings.

For now, Gestapo tactics and intimidation by STRS Ohio seem to have ended. That’s great news. The bad news is that—even before the election results were announced to the public—Ohio politicians and their allies began their assault upon the duly elected board which is seeking to restore integrity to the pension. The teachers in Ohio are at the forefront of a desperate battle to end Wall Street mandated secrecy at our nation’s public pensions.

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