COLUMBUS — More than 1,600 pages of interviews and other documents released Wednesday related to the Coingate scandal that rocked Ohio government a decade ago provide few new details, but add insight into the attraction Toledo-area coin dealer Tom Noe held for those close to power.
“I think Doug [Talbott] liked to use the term ‘The Toledo Don’,” Douglas J. Moormann, a former aide to Govs. Bob Taft and George Voinovich, told investigators for then Ohio Inspector General Tom Charles on July 26, 2005.
“Tom Noe, I think, was viewed and the way Doug positioned it was as kind of a touchstone in northwest Ohio, a good contact for the administration, a guy that was helpful to the governor, a guy that was respected by the governor,” Mr. Moorman said. “And Doug said it’d be a, you know, good guy to meet.”
SEE ALSO: Read a full copy of the investigation report
Mr. Talbott, a lobbyist and another former Taft aide, told investigators he trusted Noe a lot.
“He just seemed like — he was just that kind of guy,” he said. “I mean, I’m sure you have all heard that from others who sat in this seat before me, just the kind of guy that you felt very comfortable with and, instilled a lot of, I mean just camaraderie ...”
There were plenty of well-connected Republicans who sat in the same seat that Mr. Talbott and Mr. Moormann did and were asked many of the same questions as part of the lengthy investigation into Coingate — an unprecedented scandal exposed by The Blade beginning in April, 2005, a scandal that eventually cost the state GOP the governor’s office and most statewide elected offices.
Many Republican officeholders and appointees, including Mr. Talbott and Mr. Moormann, were convicted of charges related to Noe’s crimes.
Noe is serving an 18-year state sentence for his conviction on theft and related charges for taking $13.7 million from $50 million in rare-coin investments that the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation made with him.
He recently asked the Ohio Parole Board to recommend to Gov. John Kasich that he commute Noe’s sentence to time already served.
Noe also served a two-year federal prison sentence for using his position to convince people to launder contributions to then President George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign in excess of campaign limits.
The Coingate investigative records were released in response to a public records request made by The Blade nearly a year ago. The records released on Wednesday were characterized as the first in what will be a “rolling production” of records releases.
Current Ohio Inspector General Randall Meyer was criticized last year when he released the office’s long-awaited investigative report into the Coingate scandal that largely repeated what had already been reported. It also did not provide access to investigative documents that routinely accompanied prior investigative releases.
In their interviews, Mr. Talbott, Mr. Moorman, and others talked about the “Noe Supper Club,” the term coined to describe dinners that the former Lucas County Republican Party chairman hosted at the expensive Morton’s Steakhouse a short distance from the Statehouse in downtown Columbus.
The Blade has previously reported about the club, but the interviews provide additional insight as to why people wanted, and sometimes felt obligated, to attend.
$8,564 in dinners
The events were apparently organized by Cherie Carroll, then executive assistant to Mr. Taft’s former chief of staff, Brian Hicks. Noe picked up the tab the vast majority of the time, but exactly how much that tab was may remain a state secret.
In a cover letter, the inspector general’s office noted it had granted Morton’s confidentiality when it came to records acquired via subpoena from the restaurant.
However, the investigative report on Mr. Talbott indicated that for six of the dinners, one of which was attended by 14 people, the total bill was $8,564.
Investigators’ questions suggested there could have been as many as 16 of these dinners, but it was unclear how many were just smaller personal dinners with Noe, his then wife, Bernadette, and others.
“It really — from my standpoint was kind of, more of a social-type activity where we’d get together and talk politics…,” Mr. Talbott said.
Among others mentioned in the multiple interviews as attending at least one such dinner were Ms. Carroll; Jim Mermis, a lobbyist and former head of the state Bureau of Employment Services; Beverly Martin, then Taft deputy chief of staff; Jon Allison, another Taft aide; Donna Owens, a former Toledo mayor and former state commerce director; Chris McNulty, a former Ohio Republican Party executive; Sally Perz, a former state representative; Orest Holubec, former Taft press secretary; Dwayne Sattler, lobbyist and former aide to then U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine; Joe Kidd, former Lucas County elections director, Maggie Thurber, former county commissioner, and her husband, Sam.
Mr. Talbott specifically said he remembered that Ms. Martin insisted on paying her share of the tab. Mr. Hicks didn’t attend as far as he remembered.
Mr. Talbott said he never saw the bill and couldn’t guess what the total tab would be. His share would have likely been $45 to $50 before factoring in the “couple bottles of wine” and individual drinks at the table, he said.
Mr. Moormann said he had no reason to believe that Mr. Taft knew of the dinners.
Many guilty pleas
Investigators appeared to be particularly interested in Noe’s appointments to the Bowling Green State University Board of Trustees and Ohio Board of Regents given that he didn’t have a college degree.
Mr. Talbott, however, insisted campaign contributions were not a factor in such decisions.
Many of those who attended those dinners ended up pleading guilty to crimes related to Noe.
Mr. Taft pleaded no contest to four ethics misdemeanors for failing to disclose dozens of golf outings and gifts he received from lobbyists and businessmen, including golf games with Noe at Toledo’s Inverness Club. Those gifts were again detailed in the records released on Wednesday.
Mr. Moormann pleaded to one ethics misdemeanor for failing to disclose a $5,000 loan he received from Noe to help him pay dual mortgages in 2004 after he had left the governor’s office but was serving on the Transportation Review Advisory Council.
Mr. Talbott was convicted of failing to disclose meals and other gifts, including a $39,000 loan from Noe to make a down payment on a Lakeside, Ohio, house, and for serving as one of Noe’s conduits to funnel illegal campaign cash to President Bush and three Republican Ohio Supreme Court justice candidates.
In an email dated May 2, 2005, after Noe knew he was under investigation, he asked Mr. Talbott to begin repaying the money.
“With all the issues on my plate right now if you can repay some of either the $39,000 loan or the $14,300 loan I would greatly appreciate it,” he wrote. “I have a feeling I’ll need as much as possible for all my legal fees. Thanks a million.”
Mr. Talbott described a meeting with Noe in 2003 — the year after Noe had provided him the $39,000 to buy the Lakeside house — in which he was recruited by Noe not only to serve as a conduit for illegal campaign cash to the Bush campaign, but as a recruiter of others to do the same.
‘Bush Pioneer’
Noe wanted the perks and status of being a “Bush Pioneer” by corralling at least $100,000 in contributions for the Bush campaign. Noe gave $14,000 to Mr. Talbott to attend a campaign fund-raiser in his own name on Oct. 30, 2003, as well as for three others.
Mr. Talbott identified the three others as Mr. Moorman, Mr. Mermis, and Mr. Sattler. Those three names had previously been blacked out of the 2006 investigative report released by prosecutors.
Mr. Hicks was convicted on a misdemeanor charge for failing to report below-market stays at Mr. Noe’s Florida Keys vacation home in 2002 and 2003.
The home is now the residence of Noe’s former wife, Bernadette, who has since divorced him.
Ms. Carroll was convicted of an ethics violation for accepting expensive meals from Noe.
Noe conduits to the Bush campaign — Maggie and Sam Thurber, Ms. Owens, Ms. Perz, and former Toledo City Councilman Betty Schultz — all pleaded no contest in 2006 to misdemeanor ethics violations for failing to report the cash gifts.
Contact Jim Provance at: jprovance@theblade.com or 614-221-0496.
First Published April 9, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
