Auditor fires opponent in county race

The Democratic candidate said she expected to be fired or be asked to resign.
NEW LEXINGTON, Ohio (AP) -- A former Ohio House speaker has fired his opponent in a county auditor's race and has asked the state to investigate the activities of the department in which she worked.
Larry Householder, the Republican auditor of Perry County in southeast Ohio, said Thursday that the dismissal was based on the recommendation of an independent hearing officer who found deputy auditor Teresa Stevenson is a classified, civil-service employee. Ohio law generally prohibits classified employees from participating in partisan political activity.
Stevenson, the Democratic candidate, said she expected to be fired or asked to resign from her job in the real estate division when she entered the race. Her attorney, Donald McTigue of Columbus, said no appeal is planned.
Another auditor's office employee, Catherine Watts, remains suspended with pay on suspicion of distributing political materials and soliciting votes for Stevenson, said Dave Riepenhoff, the attorney representing Perry County. No home telephone listing could be found for Watts.
Householder said he suspended the two in May when he noticed discrepancies in the real estate division that concerned him, but he declined to elaborate. He asked the state auditor's office to investigate the alleged discrepancies in its annual audit of the county that is still being worked on.
'By the book'
"We've never done anything wrong in there," Stevenson said. "Everything is by the book."
Householder said that Stevenson and Watts haven't been accused of anything improper in the real estate office.
"We're certainly giving everyone the benefit of the doubt at this point," he said.
There are two other employees in the real estate division, but neither has been suspended.
Householder's term as speaker was clouded when federal authorities investigated him concerning an anonymous memo that accused him and two consultants of laundering campaign contributions for personal use. In March, the U.S. Justice Department ended the two-year investigation without prosecuting Householder or the two associates.
Last month, the Ohio Ethics Commission said it was investigating a business partnership in which Householder is involved for questionable use of public employees.