OHIO governor to face criminal charges, will NOT resign

[Bluebear]

Gov. Bob Taft will face misdemeanor charges for not reporting golf outings paid for by others, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

Taft, a second-term Republican and member of a distinguished U.S. political family, would be the first Ohio governor to be charged with a crime. If convicted of the four misdemeanors, he could be fined $1,000 and sentenced to six months in jail on each count, though time behind bars was considered unlikely.

Taft will be charged later Wednesday, said City Prosecutor Stephen McIntosh, who declined to comment further pending an afternoon news conference.

The governor will respond publicly on Thursday and is not planning to resign, spokesman Mark Rickel said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050817/ap_on_re_us/governor_golf&printer=1

[goodboy]

1. You know who else was on those trips???

[Bluebear]

2. Why, yes, I do!

[ironman202]

4. who? I give up...

[Bluebear]

6. Let's play Pictionary

[goodboy]

17. Bob Ney for one, and I think TOM DELAY was also!!!!!

[whistle]

3. For stealing billions from the state employee retirement funds???

[Bluebear]

5. oh hell, what's another 4 paragraphs....

nvestigators have looked for weeks at Taft's alleged violation of a law requiring officeholders to report gifts worth more than $75 unless the donor is reimbursed. He had announced the problems involving reporting of golf outings in June but said any errors were inadvertent.

The allegations about Taft, 63, grew out of a scandal that began with revelations of problems with an unusual state investment in rare coins.

The investment was handled by coin dealer Tom Noe, a top GOP donor. Noe has acknowledged that up to $13 million is missing from the fund, and Attorney General Jim Petro has accused him of stealing as much as $4 million.

Taft released records Aug. 5 showing he accepted invitations to 21 golf outings since 1999. They included a 2001 outing with Noe.

The records released earlier this month did not indicate who paid for the outings. Taft's golf partners included
John Snow, then the head of transportation company CSX Corp. and now the U.S. Treasury secretary; and Tony Alexander, president and chief executive of Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp.

[Walt Starr]

7. GOOD! I'M GLAD HE WON'T RESIGN!

Every last Ohio Democrat in 2006 should run against Taft. Make every damned election a statewide referendum on this shit.

[Bluebear]

9. My thoughts exactly

[Gabi Hayes]

11. same here.....let it drip drip drip

and let's hope Jean Schmidt gets pulled in, as well

btw, are going to Cindy vigil tonight?

there's a big one in Naperville, IIRC

[Walt Starr]

20. Didn't know about nthe Vigil in Naperville

I'll look into it, but I will probably be stuck at my office for quirte a while this evening.

[OhioChick]

18. Taft

can't run again in 2006.

[Walt Starr]

19. Doesn't matter, he's holding office when the election happens n/t

[whalerider55]

8. Taft

rhymes with graft

personally, i think he should serve every minute of every day he was elected for. don't dare resign. stay in office. remain an inspiration to all those ethically challenged political wannabees waiting in the wings.

hey, let's put together a Calendar featuring one of these ethical repeat offenders every month, and sell it as a fundraiser. Taft can be Mr. January. Abrahamoff can be Mr. February. Rush can be Mr. March (March!). And multiple indictees, like Abrahamoff, can be given two months. Save a month or two for Rove, Libby, and Delay.

Finally, how about saving one month and featuring two unindicted co-conspirators- oh, perhaps Bush and Cheney.

Put Judy Miller on the cover.

Go Taft....

Bobby Bobby he's our man

whalerider

[William769]

10. Couldn't he pardon himself?

[Bluebear]

12. Only if he farts. nt

[Fescue4u]

13. Worst. Govenor. Ever.

Ohio has a seriously bad slate of politicians.

Taft, Blackwell, Dewine, Voinovich.

Except for Blackwell, Republicans hate them as much as Democrats.

[Fescue4u]

14. Somewhat of a petty charge but I believe its leverage

Charge him with this somewhat minor crime, and then use the discovery process to nail him on the rest of it (coins, etc etc)

[Pithy Cherub]

15. Any honorable republicans left in Ohio?

:shrug:

[LittleWoman]

16. He voluntarily came clean!

During the press conference this afternoon the Franklin country prosecutor Ron O'Brien and the Columbus city attorney, Richard Pfeiffer mentioned that Taft had voluntarily reported that he had earlier not reported the golf outings. At the time this first came out, Taft tried to make it seem that neglecting to report the golf outings was just an oversight. In fact, it appeared to almost everyone that he reported these because the investigation of Noe was really heating up and the state was hauling in all of Noe's papers and it was likely that there was information there about Taft. The state attorney general, Jim Petro has been somewhat slow releasing the papers to the press, but slowly things are coming out. The Toledo Blade has done an outstanding job of reporting on this and they in fact broke the Noe story first and hung with it until it caught on. The Columbus Dispatch is not as good but they are pretty conservative (endorsed Bush in 2004 albeit with a very lukewarn editorial). I have been saying for years that it is very unhealthy for a state or country to be dominated by one political party and now the chickens are coming home to roost.



Note: edited to add names of prosecutors