North Lima auctioneer appeals one-year suspension of license

August 13, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

By PETER H. MILLIKEN

YOUNGSTOWN

A prominent North Lima auctioneer has appealed the state’s suspension of his auctioneer’s license in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

J. Paul Basinger, of Market Street, appealed Tuesday the one-year license suspension that was imposed on him by Robert J. Boggs, director of the Ohio Department of Agriculture. The suspension took effect Aug. 1. Boggs also fined Basinger $5,000.

The appeal, filed on Basinger’s behalf by Atty. Matthew C. Giannini, asks Judge R. Scott Krichbaum to modify or vacate Boggs’ order and asks the judge to hear new evidence concerning the case. No court action has occurred yet, and no court hearing dates have been set.

Neither Basinger nor Giannini responded to requests to comment.

In imposing the suspension, Boggs doubled the hearing officer’s recommendation that Basinger’s license be suspended for six months.

However, Boggs concurred in the hearing officer’s conclusion that Basinger “engaged in fraud, bid-rigging and misrepresentation” in the Aug. 25, 2009, auction of a single-family home in Warren.

After entering into an agreement with the property owner that the house wouldn’t sell for less than $40,000, Basinger advertised that the house “will sell to the highest bidder,” which the officer said legally meant that there would be no minimum bid.

Before the auction, Basinger directed his agent to bid on behalf of Basinger’s company, South Range Properties Inc., up to $40,000, without disclosing the business relationship between Basinger and the agent, the officer said.

The agent was the highest bidder at $22,000; and the second-place bidder, who bid $21,000, complained to ODA,

After the owner told Basinger he wouldn’t sell the property for $22,000, the house sold for $42,500 in a private sale.

“There was collusion and skullduggery in the clandestine pre-auction arrangement between respondent [Basinger] and his agent,” the hearing officer concluded.

The officer noted that ODA had suspended Basinger’s license for 90 days in 2005 for misleading advertising of an auction and for 14 days in 2007 for advertising while under the prior suspension.

In a letter to Boggs, Giannini objected to the hearing officer’s conclusions on the grounds that the ODA investigator conducted an incomplete probe.

Giannini said the probe was incomplete because the investigator interviewed only Basinger and the complaining bidder and failed to interview the house’s owner or any other auction attendees.

All Ohio auctioneers must be licensed by ODA. There are 3,167 active Ohio auctioneer licensees, of whom 2,724 are active auctioneers, ODA said.