On April 3, 2005, The Blade began a series that would evolve into one of the most important stories ever told by the newspaper.

It initially focused squarely on the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation s $50 million investment in rare coins with Tom Noe, a Toledo-area coin dealer and influential Republican power broker. Over the last 19 months, the project grew into

a wide-ranging examination of influence-peddling and corruption in state government.

From the start, there were questions about the rare-coin deal:

• Did Noe use his political connections and political fundraising prowess to get the state s investment business?

• How did a Colorado coin dealer lose two 1800s-era gold

coins worth about $300,000 purchased with state money, and why did Noe write off $850,000 in bad debt run up by a California coin dealer?

•Was there proper oversight over the state investment?

• Why didn t bureau officials act on the concerns raised years before by one of its internal auditors?

The Blade broke the story and kept following it as the newspaper weathered criticism of its investigative work from people ranging from Ohio Gov. Bob Taft to local radio talk show hosts who were more than happy to give Noe a forum to rail about The Blade s coverage of his coin fund.

Other Toledo print media accused the newspaper of launching

an attack against Noe.

Ten days after The Blade s initial report, the Toledo Free Press, a small weekly publication, gave the coin dealer a forum to attack The Blade.

NOE STRIKES BACK, was the headline next to an almost page-high profi le of a scowling Noe. This has been a malicious personal attack . . . It s got to be

politically motivated, another page one headline quoted Noe.

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.

Sanford Lubin, editor of the monthly publication, failed to return repeated calls for comment to his home and office.

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.

Noe said that he had broken no laws and was audited regularly by the state and that the rare-coin funds he managed had actually made $13.2 million for the bureau.

The figure Noe bragged about on Toledo radio would become one of the ironies of the scandal.

The state s investigative audit a year later would determine that $13.2 million was missing from the state s $50 million coin fund and that Noe was responsible

for it.

Mr. Schaffer, now a talk show host on Atlanta radio, did not return calls last week but sent two short e-mail responses to a request for an interview about whether he now feels he was duped by Noe. The first stated: Sorry ... but I moved ... DS, but

he later wrote about Noe: We reap what we sow.

Local backlash

Some readers canceled their newspaper subscriptions and some sources, even community leaders, refused to speak with Blade reporters out of contempt

for the newspaper s series examining Noe s relationship with the workers compensation bureau.

W. Geoffrey Lyden III, the president of TrueNorth Energy and a former Toledo-Lucas County Port Board member who previously had granted interviews concerning trends in the local gasoline market, declined such requests during the summer of

2005, citing what he considered to be The Blade s unfair treatment

of Noe.

At the time, he said he would no longer speak with Blade reporters. Mr. Lyden relented Friday, saying the news coverage of the scandal was good reporting because it exposed the facts.

But in the beginning, even Governor Taft came to Noe s defense. During a heated interview at The Blade s editorial offices on April 7, 2005, Mr. Taft proclaimed: You re trying to kill him for some reason. I don t know why. You ought to praise him, for Christ s sake.

And in early May, 2005, after The Blade had exposed that Noe had given millions in state funds to a coin dealer who had done time in a federal penitentiary for laundering drug money through his Illinois coin shop, high-level Taft administration officials continued to stand by Noe.

We made a good deal for the state insurance fund, when we [invested] with Mr. Noe, said James Conrad, the bureau s former administrator-CEO, who was forced to resign amid the scandal.

With pressure mounting, Noe resigned his appointments to the Ohio Turnpike Commission and Ohio Board of Regents, and the bureau announced plans to

dissolve the coin fund. State officials, though, trod lightly with Noe, careful not to imply he had engaged in any wrongdoing with the coin funds.

That all changed on May 26, 2005, when attorneys for Noe acknowledged that up to $13 million might be missing from the coin funds. Coingate was born as more than a dozen criminal and civil investigations ensued.

A task force and grand juries were assembled, and politicians quickly distanced themselves from their onetime friend and prolific fund-raiser.

Quest for answers

Meanwhile, The Blade continued to look for answers.

When bureau officials, including Mr. Conrad, refused to turn over records from the coin funds to Blade reporters, claiming they would reveal trade secrets, the

newspaper sued the agency, Noe, and the coin funds in the Ohio Supreme Court and won.

In June, 2005, the Supreme Court ordered the bureau to make public hundreds of thousands of pages of records documenting the inner workings of the rare-coin venture.

The next month, the newspaper went back to the Supreme Court, asking that Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro be held in contempt of court for not releasing the coin-fund records fast enough.

Mr. Petro picked up the pace and over the next several weeks produced more than a half million records documenting the activities of the Noe coin funds.

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.

Because the coin-fund records were being released in Columbus three to fi ve large boxes a day that went not only to The Blade but to two other newspapers and a Columbus television station The Blade moved most of its investigative team to the newspaper s Columbus Bureau in the LeVeque Tower near Broad and High streets.

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.

Wrongdoers punished

The project has resulted in criminal convictions and charges against more than a dozen people money managers, lobbyists, and government

officials including Governor Taft, who was convicted last year of failing to disclose that he had accepted gifts from Noe and others, including numerous free golf games.

And last week, more than 19 months after The Blade s initial story, a Toledo jury found Noe guilty on 29 charges, including engaging in corrupt behavior,

stealing from the coin funds, money laundering, records tampering, and forgery.

Tomorrow, Judge Thomas Osowik will sentence Noe to at least 10 years in state prison.

Prosecutors are urging a sentence of at least 18 years and that the time be served in state prison after Noe completes a 27-month sentence in a federal prison.

Noe was convicted in September in federal court of illegally

funneling $45,000 to the Bush-Cheney campaign through two dozen conduits mostly local Republican politicians and businessmen.

During closing arguments in the Noe coin-fund case, Lucas County Assistant Prosecutor Larry Kiroff addressed an issue first raised by Noe s attorneys.

They had suggested that investigators only began looking into Noe s behavior after The Blade began writing stories, insinuating that they were trying to curry

favor with the paper.

But Mr. Kiroff told the jury the suggestion was ludicrous and thanked the newspaper for bringing the issue to light.

Good for the Toledo Blade, he said. Call them watchdogs.

Dave Murray is editor of The Blade s investigative team that broke the Noe rare-coin investment story.

Contact Dave Murray at: dmurray@theblade.com or 419-724-6069.

First Published November 19, 2006, 1:01 p.m.