Coin dealer's jury selection starts (Noe, another Repub crook)

[ProSense]

Coin dealer's jury selection starts

By JOHN SEEWER, Associated Press Writer Tue Oct 10, 4:15 PM ET

TOLEDO, Ohio - Just four weeks before Election Day, jury selection began Tuesday in the case against a Republican fundraiser accused of embezzling at least $2 million from a rare-coin investment that he managed for the state.

The scandal has rocked the Ohio GOP and raised Democrats' hopes of retaking the governorship for the first time in 12 years.

Tom Noe, a 52-year-old coin dealer, is charged with theft, money laundering, forgery and a corrupt activity charge. He could get up to 10 years in prison on the corrupt activity charge, which includes the allegation that he stole from the $50 million rare coin fund.

Snip...

The GOP controls the governor's office and most statewide elected positions. But the Democratic candidate for governor, Rep. Ted Strickland (news, bio, voting record), holds a double-digit lead over Republican Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell in the polls.

Snip...

Separately, Noe pleaded guilty to funneling $45,000 to President Bush's re-election campaign and was sentenced last month to two years and three months in federal prison.

more...

[razors edge]

1. I live in toledo,

and I would have probably perjured my ass off to be on that jury.

[EST]

2. I have followed this unfolding creep show and have a question

with no real answer.
Although it was a boon for reporters, those with the extra brain cell it took to question the publiclown liars in chief, the money and time that it has taken to surround this obnoxious dork did not fall as manna from heaven.

All his obfuscation and customary republican spin and blaming everyone else unnecessarily complicated the search for truth and justice. The extra manpower and abuse of public trust, as well as the other crap he threw into the game should be totted up, an estimate made of the value and penalties assessed accordingly.

One should also count the fact that his greasing of the slides for the continued savaging of hope and innocence by the garbage eating pedophiles.

The way I figure it, he should spend the rest of his miserable existence in prison, doing the most onerous duties imaginable and being the prize attraction for tour busses full of potential republicans.

[razors edge]

3. The embezzlement charges

of 2 million from public funds alone leave him facing decades in prison. As a 42 year Ohioan I am just glad to see two things:

1) He will go on trial after Blackwell, Petro, and Taft are history.

2) He is the reason that Blackwell, Petro, and republican governorship are history.

as a side note: I guess that six degrees thing includes me and *.

One of my better friends was dating the owner of a large trucking outfit who was a major contributor to the republicans and both were good friends of Tom Noe. She traveled with them to the 04 inauguration parties along with Bernadette. I knew at the time Tom and Co were bad news from sources that are not welcome here on DU. I tried to warn her and she told me all about how Tom and Bernadette were "good people, and this all just political bullshit." I have not talked to her since, but I found out yesterday she has a restraining order against her millionaire boyfriend.

[EST]

5. Amazing how there's a little black cloud of lies, greed, and

incompetence that follows them around-kind of Joe Blifstlik* in an old comic strip.

That little black cloud is patently visible to virtually anyone willing to doff their ideological blinders, which, of course, leaves out most of the rabid right wing.

I like your point-silver lining - ish-that the sick authors of that catastrophe, similar to that of the * gang, carries with it the seeds of its own destruction.
I am convinced that, had the monsters currently running things been cut off at the pass, in 2004, rather than allowed to select their own rope (doncha just love my metaphor mixmaster?) they would not have shot themselves so quickly and inelegantly.

Much as I regret and sorrow for the wasted lives, property and opportunities that have accompanied the extension of the regime, I am a little comforted by the notion that their destruction would not have been so thorough as it now promises to be.

[razors edge]

6. What bothers me somewhat is

that somewhere in a functionary position is a lowly government employee who knows all the facts.

My experience as one tells me in my heart that person probably exists. Someone who thinks like we do, but knows they cannot show it when they push these cases forward through the inevitable bureaucratic friction. Possibly at times telling the speed bumps what they want to hear and then embarrassing them into action with just the right level of coworker exposure.

If that person exists, and I hope many of them do, we owe them more than we can pay, and they will never get the credit they deserve.

[texpatriot2004]

4. He's a crook! nm