If you've been following the Coingate story out of Ohio -- and even if you haven't -- there's something interesting you should see. A Toledo TV station has gotten Tom and Bernadette Noe on video, doing an outrageous, self-serving (for the Noes) 3-part interview. People in Toledo are reacting with disgust and amazement this thing was aired. You can view the videos at the link below.
For those unfamiliar with Coingate, it involves a former rare coin dealer who got a sweetheart deal with Ohio's Bureau of Workers Compensation to invest their dough in rare coins. An odd use of taxpayer money, to be sure, but it gets worse. Noe and his wife both took turns running their county's GOP party. At the time the local newspaper uncovered the rare coin investment and published a series of stories about it, the Noes were looking toward a boost in their careers. Rumors were rampant that they were get plum positions from the Bush administration as thanks for Tom being a "Pioneer" ... never mind that tens of thousands of the funds he raised were funneled into the Bush/Cheney campaign illegally (Noe was recently sentenced to over two years in federal prison for that caper).
The state charges that are to be presented at trial in October involve the coin funds that Noe managed for the state. Seems there's a little matter of millions missing from those funds, or so the prosecutors say. Much has been made of how Noe got the dough from the state (a pay-to-play mindset in government that reportedly reaches in to the governor's office and the US senate, and perhaps goes as high as the White House.
The conventional wisdom has it that the Noe case will put Ohio's government back into Democratic hands come November, so I guess we should thank Noe for that, but nothing else.
Really, if you have a few spare minutes, do take the time to view the videos. You'll see how shamelessly this criminal and his wife are using religion and even their children to paint a picture of redemption through God and domestic togetherness in times of "trial."
The videos, plus a similar newspaper interview they gave to The Blade, turned around and bit them in the butt big time. They had asked for a change of venue for the upcoming trial because of all the publicity locally. The judge turned down the request yesterday, chastising them for the media stunt and the way they are trying to manipulate public perception as they head into legal proceedings.
This bite in the butt reminds me of another one -- the one that got this whole thing rolling. Bernadette Noe went to the country prosecutor with claims about the head of the BOE here (at that time; he's gone now) that turned out to be lies. He let the prosecutor do her job, waited to be cleared -- which he was -- then he let the prosecutor know there had been crime committed but it wasn't by him; it was by Noe. That's the crime Noe eventually plead guilty to and will do time for. If Bernadette had never gone to the prosecutor, we might never have learned about the illegal campaign contributions, and we also probably would never have learned about Coingate. It's a special kind of justice when people get caught through their own attempts to harm someone else.
http://wtol.com/Global/category.asp?C=86188
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