From this morning's Toledo Blade as linked in the title:
Four Toledo women - including two elected officials - are expected to be charged tomorrow with violating state ethics law for their roles in Tom Noe's scheme to avoid campaign finance limits.
Lucas County Commissioner Maggie Thurber, Toledo City Councilman Betty Shultz, former Toledo mayor Donna Owens, and former state representative Sally Perz are expected to be charged with first-degree misdemeanors for failing to disclose gifts from Noe.
If charged and convicted, they face up to six months in jail and up to a $1,000 fine.
From my understanding a misdemeanor conviction on a charge such as this would not require any of those still in office to step down, nor would it place any type of a time period on any of those considering running for office.
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19 comments:
These people all SHOULD have been indicted on federal FELONY offenses including campaign finance violations, money laundering, conspiracy and RICO.
Instead, the fed prosecutor (a recent GOP candidate for Congress...) granted them all immunity in exchange for their UNNEEDED testimony before the fed grand jury.
The paper trail alone was MORE than enough to secure the puny Fed indictments against Tom Noe. With the testimony of even one or two of the more peripheral conduits, he would have been indicted.
This is all part of the GOP's utterly successful "it's all Tom's fault" containment strategy which is working like a CHARM.
Noe has told authorities from day one that he would plead guilty to pretty much anything IF if kept his wife out of trouble.
Guess what...?
ZERO charges against Bernadette. And if you don't pressure her and roll her over, the whole investigation stops in it's tracks.
Now, the local prosecution team can only file these PITIFUL local misdemenor charges.
These people (and others!) should all being doing the frog march perp walk across our TV screens.
YEAH AND THAT MEANS YOU TOO MAGGIE!
No body is going to be frog marched, and while I agree with you, anonymous that some in the GOP are trying to absolve themselves of any responsibility, that happens on both sides.
The problem is we as voters let them.
I don't see a benefit of sending any of the conduits to jail, realistically it is the way that the political system is set up to reward those who rake in big dollars that creates this situation in the first place. As long as money equals political influence that is not going to change.
Tom Noe going to jail is not going to change the system, while of course he has to answer to the law, figuring out a better way to prevent future Tom Noe's would be more productive. Yet that doesn't seem to be happening.
Like Bob McCloskey no matter what type of sentence Tom Noe gets his life has been forever changed.
Lisa Renee,
The really sad thing about all these scandals is the chance that even more people will become disenchanted and remove themselves from the electoral process.
It's likely that those involved will get a "slap on the wrist" and that sends the wrong message to the citizens out there.
We must hold people accountable for their actions and perhaps that will serve as a deterrent to future wrongdoing.
For me, the really remarkable and disturbing thing is that these "conduits" are veteran political figures who should and do know better than to take part in a scheme like this.
Mark, I don't disagree with you that they should have all known better.
I also agree this can make people even more disenchanted with politics.
I just think the way to prevent this again is something that should be a focus, or more of a focus. A start would be for political parties/candidates to stop rewarding people for raising certain dollar amounts.
From a law enforcement perspective this is such a crock.
Look at the resources the Feds employed to get that WORTHLESS DINO (dem in name ONLY) McCloskey- wiretaps, a wired C.I. (confidential informant) etc.
Contrast that with the wide spread, pervasive, systemic CRIMES committed by the local GOP and the legal system's response: they just admitted to filing fictional finance reports for TWO years and got LESS than a slap on the wrist.
Are there rat fink Democrats? Hell, yes.
But that is completely different from what happened here in 2004. This was corruption by design. Think about one fact: there were FIFTY conduits.
FIFTY ! and not ONE reported it to anyone in law enforcement-heck no. Because for the GOP using money to buy power is INTRINSIC to their belief system. NONE of them saw a problem.
I LOVED Battle-axe Betty Schultz's response, which was basically "I thought that's they way they did things in the GOP."
"I don't see a benefit of sending any of the conduits to jail"
Why not?
Do we have one standard of criminal justice or not?
Do we have one standard of criminal justice or not?
How much time did the Governor do? Or Brian Hicks? Or Doug Moormann? Or H. Douglas Talbott?
Zip...just fines and it involved more money in the majority of these cases than these four women or any of the conduits that were not even charged are involved with.
Call me more liberal on this issue but Jail isn't always the appropriate sentence, nor is it a typical sentence for most misdemeanors anyway.
Cherie Carroll also, fined no jail time.
I just moved here a few months ago. I always kept track of politics, local and otherwise and did a lot of volunteer work in the community. I'm not unfamiliar with the way things work but I have to say that Ohio politics takes a bit of getting used to.
These four will get off with just a slap on the wrist. It send the wrong message. If they received jail time, maybe future politicos would be more reluctant to step accross the line.
They all do it,
They all knew it,
They will all breathe a sigh of relief when the last case is settled.
And, those that got away (or, weren't caught) this time will thank their lucky stars.
And then it will be, back to corruption as usual. . .
Kate, you're clueless honey.
Anonymous is anonymous because that RICO theory would hold up and anyone who seriously pushes this issue publicly would be retaliated against. This is common knowledge among inner circles in Northern Ohio. Thurber knew what she was doing. She went with the flow like the rest of them.
And this line is hilarious:
"But that is completely different from what happened here in 2004. This was corruption by design. Think about one fact: there were FIFTY conduits. FIFTY ! and not ONE reported it to anyone in law enforcement-heck no."
That concept is completely laughable. What in the world makes you think "law enforcement" would've done about this? THEY CHARGE ONLY ON THE ADVICE OF THE PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE! (and you think at that point Bates would charge a known political figure on the urging of a cop or low level prosecutor? Keep dreaming.)
Also notice that Julia Bates, as reported by the Blade, assigns special prosecutors on cases where she has conflicts of interest. Think about that for a moment. Who is the LAST PERSON you'd want hand picking a prosecutor's replacement when there's a conflict of interest?
And yet Julia hand picks them...just like every other prosecutor does in the state of ohio. It's like a straight faced scam they pull on just about every political case that ends up in Ohio courts.
This is obviously, plainly, unethical and wrong, yet standard operating procedure just like the conduit situation. Nobody will call Bates out on it. And if they do, she'll answer: "Well we've been doing it that way for years." (Uh, that means it's legal? NO!)
The reason that I made the gibe about none of the fifty conduits not reporting what was going on was twofold:
1. How did the whole scandal get revealed? Because one GOPer insider got pissed at another one, tried to rat them out and it all went south.
2. Which Party always tries to portray itself as "tough on crime'?
(Unless, of course, THEY are the criminals...)
It's the difference between a fuck up like McCloskey and an ideology, a belief system.
Based on what has been revealed by the FBI I just wanna mention two words
"wire fraud."
I really didn't mean to make that sound insulting. (that law enforcement wouldn't do anything) I'm just saying that most people have a misguided view on where the real problems lie with county political corruption. In most cases, the prosecutor's office already knows what's going on. The reason they don't charge is because the public will never really understand the vastness of the problem because it takes longer than five minutes to explain. (Therefore most of the public doesn't understand it and won't take the time to understand it) Without the genuine public outcry and the fact that the public lets the Republicans get away with the "let's put all the blame on Tom" tactic, the prosecutors are able to stop the investigation without it spreading to their friends and possibly themselves.
Alot of how their treating this is a warning to other politicians. The Toledo women (Thurber included) were merely charged with misdys. Just a fine. (big deal.) and a crim record that doesn't mean jack because it's only a misdy.
So much power lies with the prosecutor's. It's the most powerful position in the county and most armed with devices that could ruin real lives and damage reputations.
Watch those goddamn prosecutors.
Serial, point taken and it is hard at times to get tone thru that you'd get when you were actually speaking with a person.
I don't disagree with you when it comes to who makes and assigns a special prosecutor. That is part of the issue here.
Lisa, thanks for answering. I was going to keep posting under "anonymous" but it's hard to keep track of what an individual person is saying if they're always using "anonymous" as a handle." From now on I'll be "serial lurker" I guess.
This special prosecutor racket just has to stop. It's going to take a large article in a major newspaper to get people to start talking about it - and then from there we'll need a blogstorm to keep the pressue on. The Free Press is probably enough to get the ball rolling, but they have to understand that this problem permeates all prosecutor's offices across the state. The "office" of "special prosecutor" is a pivotal device on obtaining a specific case outcome. All 88 of them (county prosecutors) will fight against giving up control over picking their replacements in politically sensitive cases, but public pressure has to mount in order to stop it. Allowing a prosecutor to pick their own replacement - or to even SUGGEST who should take over - violates the purpose of even having a special prosecutor assigned. Once the populace thinks about this issue, they're going to get more and more mad because it's just so damn unethical. It's a wonder nobody puts a stop to it.
Given the fact that Ms. Bates has relatives at the Blade, covering this issue in that newspaper would probably get frowned upon over there....
We're all looking to the Free Press to contact some law professors out of state for their opinion on this bullshit Ohio special prosecutor racket.
Lisa, why not bring this up on the front page of your blog and see what people have to say about it?
Anybody see the Blade today (Sunday July 2)
Told ya so...
Yep I saw it - see my latest post.
:-)
I don't think you are clueless Kate, and it appears you want the same thing - some one to look at this from outside of this area.
Which we had happen, but did not get quite indepth look into this that should have happened. Or the results that some wanted.
If I were anonymous or Serial Lurker and I was within the system more as it sounds they are, I'd probably be even more frustrated.
I keep going to the statement absolute power corrupts absolutely, and as long as we keep putting the power in the same hands over and over again we do increase the chances of corruption. It doesn't matter if it is a Democrat majority or a Republican majority. History seems to indicate when that happens without a balance? It becomes more about self-protection than it does about serving the public interest.
Tom Noe happened because people allowed it to happen. Bob McCloskey happened because people allowed it to happen. I find it so ironic that people who speak out about the Mayor are cheered and encouraged yet public officials that didn't come forward on even more serious issues that involved money are given a free skate. People are talking about recalling the Mayor yet where is the recall Taft movement as one example. I must have missed the weeks that the media and the rest of us spent on that issue.
Or look at what you know is happening in TPS, things are very wrong and were is the focus on that? We seem to be caught in a pattern of selective outrage that misses some key areas that we should be outraged about. (which I plead guilty to as well.)
:-)
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