Atty Gen: Dann (D) Comments on Noe Sentencing

A press release from the campaign of attorney general candidate State Sen. Marc Dann (D-Liberty Township):

Now that former Lucas County GOP chair, Betty Montgomery contributor, and Bush pioneer Tom Noe will have to stake a claim in a federal pen, State Senator Marc Dann says all eyes should focus on the leading Republican’s upcoming trial on 48 felony charges related to “Coingate,” the $50 million rare coin investment scam that went undetected by Montgomery and other state officials.

“While Mr. Noe certainly deserves every day of the 27 months he’ll serve for illegally funneling money into George Bush’s campaign, these charges pale in comparison to what will be revealed next month in Lucas County Common Pleas Court,” Dann said today when he learned of Noe’s sentence.

“I believe that when the prosecutors put on their case and tie all the fragments of the wide ranging BWC scandal into a neat package for the jury, the people of Ohio will be appalled and disgusted by what they hear,” Dann said. “I’m confident that they will then vote out the Republicans, including Betty Montgomery and Ken Blackwell, and put an end to the pay-to-steal system that has burdened our state with a billion dollar a year corruption tax for far too long.”

Dann said Noe and other leading GOP figures who have pleaded guilty to criminal charges in the past year, including Governor Bob Taft, his former chief of staff Brian Hicks, and former BWC investment chief Terry Gasper, took advantage of the fact that none of the state’s constitutional officers ever exercised their oversight authority over the BWC. “They knew no one was minding the store, so they went ahead and looted it,” Dann said. “Fortunately, a few enterprising reporters did what Betty Montgomery and her huge staff never bothered to do—they investigated what was going on at the Bureau and exposed it.”