Convicted fundraiser says he is not a thief

March 1, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

COLUMBUS (AP) — A former Republican fundraiser convicted of stealing from an Ohio investment fund says he was a bad bookkeeper, not a thief.

Tom Noe, the central figure in a scandal that engulfed state Republicans five years ago, said his state contract allowed him to take advances on the public money invested in his Toledo rare-coin dealership.

“What I’m saying is, is that not one dollar was taken that wasn’t either going to be paid back or that I didn’t think I took under the terms of the contract,” Noe said in an interview with The Columbus Dispatch published Sunday.

Noe was convicted of theft and other crimes in 2006 in a scandal at the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation that helped Democrats win four of five statewide offices in 2006.

Prosecutors said Noe stole $13.7 million from an investment fund he managed on behalf of the bureau. He was given state money in 1998 and 2001 to invest in coins and other items.

Noe, who previously served two years in federal prison for making $45,000 in illegal contributions to President Bush’s re-election campaign, filed an appeal Feb. 16 with the Ohio Supreme Court seeking to overturn his state conviction, saying his trial was biased by media coverage.

“I made a lot of mistakes,” said Noe, who is serving an 18-year prison sentence at the Hocking Correctional Facility in southeast Ohio. “I’m just saying I’m not guilty, in my opinion, of what they said I’m guilty of.”

Noe told The Dispatch that he falsified the inventories of coins and other holdings that were submitted to the state each year, but not because he was trying to steal. He said he and his business partner feared the records would become public and that the value of the investments could suffer if other coin dealers knew the details.

Prosecutors said the bogus records were evidence that Noe was trying to hide his thefts.

Witnesses at Noe’s trial also said that he used the state coin fund like an ATM, making transfers into his company’s account when it was low and using state money to write checks to himself and for expenses such as landscaping at his Florida home.