Record of ex-Ohio govenor Taft expunged

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Legal records of the historic conviction of then-Ohio Gov. Bob Taft in a 2005 rare-coin investment scandal have been shielded forever from public view.

The expungement was revealed by the fact that there was no reference to Taft’s no-contest plea on ethics charges in a state watchdog’s long-awaited report on the Coingate scandal released last week. Inspector General Randall Meyer indicated he was legally prohibited from mentioning certain figures’ involvement because their records were sealed. He didn’t say who.

Taft, the great-grandson of former U.S. President William Howard Taft, is Ohio’s only governor convicted of a crime.

The former governor’s name appears in Meyer’s report but his and four other convictions aren’t mentioned. The Columbus Dispatch first tied the missing reference to the expungement of Taft’s record.

Reached today at his office at the University of Dayton, Taft declined to discuss the report with The Associated Press. “I’m not going to talk about that,” he said.

The scandal began with a newspaper report of a dubious $50 million investment by the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation into a rare-coin fund run by generous Republican fundraiser Tom Noe, of Toledo. Two coins worth $300,000 were reported lost, and other investments were missing or unaccounted for.

A web was eventually uncovered linking influence-peddling at the bureau to bribery, lavish gifts and political contributions.

Taft’s conviction, one of 19 in the scandal, involved failing to report golf games with Noe and other gifts on required ethics statements.

A Republican from Cincinnati, Taft was Ohio’s governor from 1999 to 2007.