Ohio GOP fundraiser Tom Noe was sentenced to 18 years in prison for the Coingate scandal, embezzling millions from the state of Ohio in a rare coin investment scheme. But first he will be serving a 27 month federal sentence.
Thank God for the Toledo Blade, because without their incredible diligence, none of this would have been exposed. Noe was a powerful man with even more powerful friends, and the paper was under tremendous pressure to curtail their investigation. Rather than fold, the Blade put tremendous resources into their effort:
All told, The Blade’s investigation, which has expanded into a broader examination of the bureau and state government, has consisted of more than 600 stories and required a team that at its peak included six reporters, an editor, a forensic accountant, and a file clerk.[...]
It quickly became apparent as copies of the Noe coin-fund records piled up that not only a filing system had to be created to stay organized but that additional office space had to be rented.
When you commit journalism, you often make enemies.
The Toledo Business Journal also weighed in with a page one editorial stating that The Blade’s investigation amounted to a “vendetta” and that “key info” was missing from the series.[...]
A former local radio talk show host — WSPD’s Denny Schaffer — had Noe on his program the day after The Blade’s first story ran. “Do they not like you because you’re a Republican or do they not like you because they cannot control you, or both?” was one of the leadoff questions. “To me ... they’re trying to destroy you.”
Obviously, we can be grateful to the Toledo Blade for partisan reasons; were it not for their reporting, we might not have a Democratic majority in the Senate. And a Blade editorial points out that this is not the end of the story.
Still to be examined is the more interesting mystery of who arranged for Noe to receive his $50 million windfall, a question that could very well bedevil George V. Voinovich, governor at the time and now Ohio's senior U.S. senator.
In short, Coingate is not over and won't be until all the thieves and con artists - not just Tom Noe - are rooted out and punished.