State probes donations

TOLEDO (AP) -- Charities that received donations from a coin dealer at the center of Ohio's investment scandal are worried they might have to return the money.
Indicted coin dealer Tom Noe was a giant on the Toledo-area charity circuit, giving frequently to organizations that help cancer patients, Catholic school and church causes as well as Bowling Green State University and the University of Toledo.
A youth soccer field -- built with the help of Noe's $50,000 donation -- even bears his name.
State investigators want to know whether Noe's benevolence was bankrolled with money he is charged with stealing from a state coin fund, and whether those funds can be recovered.
"It would always be hard for an organization like ours to give it back," said Jay Salvage, executive director of the Make A Wish Foundation of Northwest Ohio Inc., which grants wishes to children with a life-threatening illness. Noe attended several Make A Wish fundraisers.
Charged with theft
Noe is charged with stealing at least $1 million from a $50 million investment in rare coins he managed for the state Bureau of Workers' Compensation. He has pleaded innocent, and a trial is set for August.
Noe also has pleaded innocent to federal charges that he illegally funneled $45,400 in contributions to President Bush's re-election bid.
Some of Noe's charitable giving increased markedly after he received the coin money.
For example, Noe had given a little more than $1,500 to the University of Toledo before March 1998, when he received the first of two $25 million payments from the workers' compensation bureau. He gave more than $34,000 afterward, including $31,000 for half a suite at the school's football stadium.
That year he also gave $50,000 to the Catholic Youth Organization for the soccer field that bears his name.