Noe sentenced to 18 years in prison
By Mark Niquette
The Columbus Dispatch
Monday, November 20, 2006 10:22 AM
Associated Press
Tom Noe listens to the verdicts being read in Lucas County Common Pleas Court last week.
TOLEDO -- Coin dealer Thomas W. Noe was sentenced to 18 years in state prison this morning for stealing from a rare-coin investment he managed for the state.
Judge Thomas J. Osowik also ordered that Noe start serving the state sentence after he finishes a 27-month prison term for an unrelated federal conviction. That means he will spend 20 years and three months behind bars.
Osowik also fined Noe $120,000 plus the cost of the investigation, which prosecutors said was nearly $3 million.
A hearing also has been scheduled one week for today to determine what restitution Noe must pay, which prosecutors say is at least $13.7 million that Noe stole from the $50 million investment he managed for the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation.
Noe lawyer John R. Mitchell said in court the defense disputes that figure. He said after the sentencing that Noe, who appeared in court shackled in a blue Lucas County jail jump suit, also would appeal the conviction but declined further comment.
Noe's attorneys had asked Osowik to sentence Noe only to the mandatory minimum of 10 years that he faced on the state charges, and to allow Noe to serve the state and federal sentences at the same time.
But prosecutors asked Osowik to give Noe more time than the minimum on the state charges and to order that the sentences be served consecutively, arguing they were separate cases. Osowik agreed.
Although Osowik said the case was a “run-of-the mill embezzlement,†he ruled that Noe was in a position of public trust and stole form the state investment at “shockingly alarming rate.â€
A Lucas County jury convicted Noe on 29 of the 40 felony counts including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, aggravated theft, money laundering and tampering with records.
The jury acquitted Noe on seven money laundering and four tampering with records charges.
But Noe was convicted on the most serious charges, a first-degree felony theft of more than $1 million and the racketeering charge. The later carries a mandatory sentence of at least 10 years in prison.
Prosecutors say Noe, a once-prominent Republican contributor, stole from the bureau investment to pay off debts and for other personal uses.
Noe's attorneys argued at trial that Noe's contract with the bureau gave him broad authority over the funds and characterized the money he took as loans or advances. If Noe failed to pay back that money, it would be a civil case and not a criminal matter, his attorneys said.
The lawyers filed additional evidence today arguing the case should have been moved out of Lucas County because of pre-trial publicity.
Noe has spent that past week in the Lucas County jail. He was handcuffed and taken into custody by federal marshals after the guilty verdict was announced last Monday.
Earlier this year,
Noe pleaded guilty to federal charges of illegally funneling $45,400 to President Bush's re-election campaign in 2003 and was sentenced to two years and three months in federal prison.The collapse of the Noe's coin investment last May sparked a series of state ethics and investment scandals that helped Democrats reclaim the governor's office other state posts in the Nov. 7 election.
mniquette@dispatch.com
http://columbusdispatch.com/news-story.php?story=227840
