Officials look into donations

He is accused of writing checks to people who made donations to Bush.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Investigators are looking into whether a coin dealer charged with illegally funneling donations to President Bush's re-election campaign also disguised contributions to statewide candidates.
Tom Noe, who also is embroiled in a government scandal over missing money from the state's investment in rare coins, pleaded innocent last month to charges that he exceeded federal limits on campaign contributions by reimbursing friends and associates who wrote their own checks to the Bush campaign.
A task force of state and federal prosecutors is looking at the possibility that Noe also funneled illegal donations to statewide candidates, said Phil Richter, executive director of the Ohio Elections Commission. The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer first reported the development.
Complaint
Richter said he expects a complaint to be filed with his office, according to conversations he had with the state watchdog about the Noe investigation within the past two weeks.
"The nature of the conversation was that similar allegations to what has already been discussed on the federal level may be coming out of this investigation on a statewide basis," Richter said Friday.
Ohio Inspector General Tom Charles told The Plain Dealer that the task force is looking "at any wrongdoing we find."
On Friday, Charles confirmed to The Associated Press that he asked Richter to brief him and his investigators about campaign finance law as part of the Noe investigation. He declined to comment further.
Noe's attorney, William Wilkinson, said this was the first he'd heard of such allegations.
"It seems to me that the conspiracy theorists have declared open season on Tom Noe," he said.
Allegations
Federal prosecutors say Noe illegally funneled $45,400 in contributions to Bush to fulfill his pledge to raise $50,000 for a fund-raiser in Columbus in October 2003. The fund-raiser was just over a year before Ohio's electoral votes gave Bush the White House.
Noe wrote several checks to people who donated to Bush, including some just under the maximum allowable amount of $2,000 to avoid suspicion, the indictment said. All of the checks were written in the eight days leading up to the fund-raiser.
The largest check was a $14,300 payment to an unnamed individual who authorities said then split the money between people attending the fund-raiser.
Noe is also under investigation for his handling of a $50 million investment in rare coins he managed for the state workers' compensation fund.