Coingate FAQs
Please note that this FAQ is not intended as an alternative
to reading the book. If you haven’t read at least the Express Section and the
Conclusion, it’s not likely that this information will be useful.
Was There Really Theft in Coingate?
Q- The
Toledo Blade, even after agreeing
that the coin funds made a profit, still says that Noe “stole” some $12
million. Is that accurate?
A- No, I
don’t think that’s accurate at all. Agreeing with this conclusion would require
legal and logical twists so extreme they’d qualify as origami.
Q- Explain.
A- First,
there’s the false argument that Noe had committed theft because there were some
missing coins. Some coins were in fact missing from inventory, because Noe did
use falsified coin sales as a way to take loans. In other words, he said he
sold a coin from his own business to the fund and got the cash for the sale,
but in fact didn’t physically transfer the coin – usually because he didn’t own
it. [NB The nature of the coin funds and how Noe took undocumented loans is
explained in depth in the book.]
A- This sure
sounds like theft.
Q- Yes, it
sounds like it. And it’s why the whole thing is confusing to the public. What
you need to understand, though, is that, as explicitly stated in the contract, no
coins ever belonged to the state (in this case, “the state” means the Bureau of
Workers Compensation). Instead, the contract specified that Noe had to provide
the value of the coins held in the
fund when the agreement ended after eleven years. What’s relevant in
considering whether there was theft isn’t the physical presence of the coins,
but whether Noe, as the fund manager, was legally and visibly documented as
responsible for their value. Both the physical coins and the notes saying the fund
owned the coins were the same thing: representations
of value. Since the evidence shows he had fully recorded his loans, that’s not
theft.
Q- Explain
that a little more.
A- Sure. In
the contract between the and Noe, he got money to invest – primarily in coins
but also in other things -- and after a certain period of time would return the
state’s money with a profit. Coins were an investment instrument, but not what
the state owned or was supposed to get back. The state put money in and got
money back.
Q- OK, but
how is it that the documents Noe left in the funds’ accounts were the same as
actual coins?
A- They were
the same from the point of view of the accounting -- they both represent assets
of a certain value held by the funds. In accounting, a quantity of cash and an
obligation to pay the same amount are treated as of equal value.
Q- You’ve
said that Noe used fake coin sales to take loans. Was that legal?
A- There’s
no question that in the contracts he was allowed to take loans at his own
discretion and didn’t have to secure them or pay interest. But he was also
required to keep accurate records and, by not describing the fake coin sales as
loans in the documents he gave to the state, he was certainly violating that
provision. Noe was guilty of false accounting – including the formal charge of
“tampering with records” --and he admits that.
Q- If he had
so much flexibility to take loans, why didn’t he describe them directly as
such?
A- He used
the loans for various purposes, some easily justifiable, some not. One use was
that he had to repay some personal loans he’d taken to buy coins for the funds
before the state money arrived. Another is that he had miscalculated what it
was going to cost him to run the funds at the outset and needed more operating
money for an initial period. He could have explained these two uses and not had
a problem. But his accounting was poor and he didn’t think it was necessary to
do all the work of documenting, so he didn’t. Also, it seems clear he used some
of the loans to support personal expenses. It was definitely wrong to do that,
but he had so much flexibility and such a long time to repay, Noe said he
didn’t think repayment would be a problem. Again, this was obviously wrong and
he has admitted that. Still, because he left the funds with assets in the form
of complete documentation of the loans, it wasn’t theft. Theft would have
occurred only if he had hidden his obligation to repay or if he had no
reasonable ability to repay. Neither of those was the case.
Q- OK, back
to the ownership of the coins. How is it that the state didn’t own the coins?
Wasn’t that the whole point of the investment?
A- Not
quite. The state invested in a company that invested in coins – and also other
things like collectibles and stocks. The state didn’t own the coins, it owned
shares in the company.
Q- You mean
like a mutual fund?
A- Exactly.
In a mutual fund you own shares in the fund, not the actual stocks that the
fund buys and sells. Also, in a mutual fund, you don’t have the right to
challenge the transactions that the funds make – what is bought and sold and
when. If you don’t like what the fund managers are doing, your only option is
to cash out. That’s exactly how the coin funds worked.
Q- But you
say in the book that the state violated its contract by terminating its
investment. Why?
A- Because
the coin funds were actually more like special type of mutual fund, called a
hedge fund. Hedge funds are much less flexible because the idea is to support a
long term investment that are not likely to be highly liquid. Investors can’t
easily get their money out before the term ends. And that’s exactly how the
coin funds were structured – and for the same reason of supporting long term
investment. Noe was very clear about that in the prospectus he gave the state
before the investment was made.
Q- If the
state didn’t own the coins but did have the promissory notes for Noe’s loans, how
was it able to claim theft?
A- The state
argued that, despite the explicit language in the contract to the contrary, it
really did have ownership of the coins so Noe couldn’t take loans in the way he
did. The state’s lawyers said the contract wasn’t valid.
Q- Why did
the state take the extreme step of denying the clear contract language and
therefore undermining a type of contract that is used in many other investment
relationships? Why did prosecutors decide to assert what could become a radical
and risky precedent?
A- The
answer appears to be in the fact that, in criminal law, proving theft requires
proving intent (“mens rea”). If you first consider that the IOUs Noe left were
equal in value to the coins and that the IOUs were highly visible and
effectively impossible to change in the accounting, and then also consider that
Noe likely had the ability to repay, criminal intent is impossible to prove.
Hence the only alternative for the prosecutors was to deny the contract and
assert state ownership of the coins.
Q- Isn’t it
a problem when one party denies the terms of a contract?
A- It sure
is, and that’s especially true here because the contract was reviewed multiple
times by multiple state lawyers before it was signed. Noe had every reason to
believe the contract was valid.
Q- Doesn’t
the state’s decision to override an officially agreed contract set a bad precedent?
A- It
certainly should. If you take the Noe case as a precedent, the state couldn’t
invest in a hedge fund or lots of other similar financial agreements. The
state’s approach here even denies the concept of a mortgage – if you accept the
state’s logic, your bank is really the owner of your house and could revoke
your mortgage if they didn’t like the color you used to paint your kitchen.
Q- How
strong is the precedent? Won’t it become impossible for the state to work with
private companies?
A- No. It’s
not a real precedent. Like so many things in the Coingate saga, it’s a one-off
interpretation – the legal origami I mentioned earlier. It’s to be applied only
to Noe and then forgotten in the future. And that’s the core of what’s so
deeply troubling about the Noe case.
Did Noe Really Intend to Repay?
Q- Noe says
he intended to repay all the money he took as loans and advances. Of course, pretty
much everyone who is charged with fraud says that. Why do you believe Noe?
A- I believe
him for several reasons. One, which I’ve stated in another of these
discussions, is that he appears to have had the financial ability to cover the value
of the loans -- the “missing” coins – and more.
Q- OK, but
didn’t he hide the loans? Wouldn’t that be in anticipation of just taking the
money and keeping it?
A- That’s
two questions. The answer to the first, whether he hid the loans, is yes and
no. In the reports to the Bureau, he did hide his loans by saying he’d bought
coins and this false reporting was a violation of his contract and conceivably
a criminal offense. But it wasn’t theft, and the accounting he used actually
ensured that he’d have to repay.
Q- Again, why
wasn’t it theft?
A- Because
the coin funds didn’t own physical coins, they owned the value those coins
represented. And by saying that he held a particular coin in the name of a coin
fund, Noe was specifically taking responsibility for the fund’s – and indirectly
the state’s – ownership of that value.
Q- Explain
that a little more.
A- Sure. Let’s
say the Noe told the Bureau he bought two coins, each worth $5,000. One of
those he really bought and one he didn’t but just left a note saying he did.
When the fund terminated, the revenue owed to the state would be the same
whether there was a physical coin or a note saying one was owned. That’s
because Noe was responsible for providing the state with money equal to the
value no matter whether it was in the inventory physically or just listed on
paper. By the way, assets weren’t necessarily to be held to the end of the
contract – most were sold for a profit after a period of time – but the
principle is the same.
Q- OK, I see
that. But how does it show he intended to repay?
A- Noe, by
saying he had the coin when he didn’t, was taking a fully documented loan of $5,000.
He wasn’t surreptitiously taking cash out of the till. He wasn’t pretending to
pay bills he didn’t owe. He wasn’t doing any of the things people do to cover
up fraud so it will never be known. Instead, he was very clearly and very
specifically documenting his loans. If he didn’t intend to repay, he wouldn’t
have used such a highly visible and nearly impossible to change accounting
method.
Was Noe Able to Repay the Loans?
Q- You said
that having the physical coin and having a note saying a coin was owned would
be the same thing for the coin funds. But that’s true only if Noe had the
ability to repay the loan that the document – the paper coin if you will --
represented. Could Noe have repaid
the loans he took? Did he have the resources?
A- Even after accounting for his loans, Noe could have given
the state a considerable overall profit – one probably three times greater than
what was actually delivered. In most accounting disputes I’ve seen, covering everything
and having a notable profit is enough to have everyone walk away and forget
about the costs of legal action.
But even if the state had insisted that this wasn’t enough,
and taken the path of requiring repayment of loans separate from
profits, arguing that he could have made even more money, I think he could have
repaid, and probably quickly. But there are so many variables here it’s
impossible to answer with numeric and temporal certainty.
Q- What are
the variables?
A- One is time – when
he’d have had to repay – i.e. if he had the reasonable time allowed for in the
contract vs. being forced into a quasi-fire sale situation as actually
happened. Another is whether he’d be in charge of dissolving the funds as
provided for in the contract – remember that he was owed 20% of profits.
Another important variable is how much he actually owed – when you look carefully
at the supposedly “missing” $12 million, you know the number is bogus. The
audits described a lot of money as missing because the auditors couldn’t prove
it wasn’t missing – sort of backwards from the way it should be. Some of the
money described as missing was in fact still there, either in cash accounts or
in other parts of the coin funds. The indictment should have said something
like “as much as $12 million may have been missing” instead of giving a
concrete figure. You really have to read the book to understand all this – it
can’t be summarized in a few words.
Beyond that,
recall that Noe did have considerable personal resources in his business and he
had other assets beyond that in investments and in real estate. And, if
suddenly put in a difficult position, it’s highly likely he could have borrowed
money from friends. Unlike the cases of alleged or actual fraud I’ve read while
researching the book, Noe was at a minimum very close to being able to immediately
repay everything he’d taken as loans, and almost certainly able to repay in the
short term. There’s a certain irony here, since it’s very common for charges to
be dropped (or not presented at all) when there’s a chance of repayment even
over the long term. The unusual, if not unique, treatment of Noe strongly
implies that he was prosecuted for a reason other than collecting a debt that
may have been owed to the state.
-->
Q- Couldn’t Noe have avoided repayment by transferring profits from other areas to cover loans? Doesn’t this possibility undermine the idea that he intended to repay?
A- It’s
true this scenario is described in one of the Non-Political Noe examples, and
referenced in some examples. But that shouldn’t be taken to mean that it’s a
likely outcome or that Noe could reasonably have planned on using it to avoid
repayment.
Recall that the coin funds were set to run for a period of
time, then close. At that point, there would be a full accounting and Noe
wouldn’t have been able to hide loans against coins with funds transferred from
other areas. I referenced the idea of the state possibly overlooking these
transfers only in the context of a rapid, almost panicky closure of the funds.
Noe couldn’t have counted on this kind of ending and certainly didn’t want it. And
there’s nothing more than a possibility that the accountants would have missed
the transfers in this situation.
Again, the kind of accounting gimmick Noe used to hide loans
from the state wasn’t a permanent solution, one that could make an ordinarily
careful accountant think everything was OK. On the contrary, the loans were
highly visible to anyone doing a full audit.
Also, it isn’t just Noe who said that the intention was
always to repay: Tim LaPointe, a
prosecution witness, repeatedly said the same thing.
In summary, covering coin-based loans with profits from
elsewhere wouldn’t have been a viable strategy for Noe. The only way he would
have been safe was to repay the loans. Something he likely could have done but
wasn’t allowed to try.
Q- Do you really believe that what Noe did was
OK – do you really think he shouldn’t have been punished at all?
A- No, and I
did say at numerous points in the book that he falsified records (“tampering”
in legalese) and that he probably evaded some small amount of taxes through his
record-keeping. I also point out that, even though the contract permitted him
to take loans and advances without permission, he likely would have been challenged
on the amounts he withdrew if he hadn’t submitted misleading records.
Q- So isn’t
that enough to justify punishment?
A- Yes, but
perspective is important. First, most cases like this are handled in civil
rather than criminal court. It’s really pointless for me to say what the
outcome would have been in a civil case, in part because I have no legal
training and in part because, from my layman’s perspective, there seems to be
such a wide variation in decisions. In other words, I’ve read about similar
cases where the outcome was just an agreement to repay and others in which the
loser had to pay a major settlement as well as legal costs. NB – judgments in
civil courts do not lead to jail sentences.
Q- But is it
completely unreasonable for this to have been a criminal case?
A- No.
Absent the political context I think a criminal charge would have been very
unlikely. But such a charge is legally possible and not entirely unprecedented.
Q- So the
outcome could be seen as OK?
A- No. I
don’t agree with that. The issue is perspective and proportionality. As
mentioned, the only charge I think was valid was tampering with records and
possibly tax evasion (he actually wasn’t charged with that). I don’t believe
any ordinary, non-political person would have faced a theft charge, much less
RICO (Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization), in an accounting-based case
like this. As an aside, it would be interesting to see how the Lucas County
Prosecutor – or indeed other prosecutors in Ohio -- used the RICO law before
Noe.
Q- Are you
saying that white collar crime shouldn’t occasion criminal charges?
A- No. On the contrary, I believe criminal charges should be
used more widely in some white collar cases. Just now there are reports of
doctors prescribing an unnecessary and potentially dangerous drug to the
elderly in return for payments from a pharmaceutical company. The federal
government is investigating and the article I read said that charges in these
cases are usually brought in civil court. I disagree. These seem like criminal
offenses to me, and I believe that the parties – if proven guilty -- should
serve some prison time – maybe a year or so. And doctors should lose licenses.
The comparison above illustrates clearly the problem with
Noe’s case: it isn’t the abstract issue
of white collar crime, it’s the specific process and outcomes. Noe didn’t put
anyone’s health at risk, he didn’t threaten anyone’s financial livelihood – the
state got back more than its original investment (even after using a fire sale
to liquidate assets), and didn’t even allege specific victims in his case.
Instead, it seems clear to me that he was subjected to a special set of rules
simply because he was politically prominent and both parties wanted to get him,
albeit for different reasons. The result was a punishment that stands
completely and radically apart from what’s normal. That’s more than troubling; that
such a thing could happen is dangerous to our society.
Were the Charges Against Noe Honestly Created?
Why Are All the Records Gone?
Q- Why are
you so concerned with how the charges in the indictment handed down against Noe
were developed?
A- The process and the origins of what charges to file are
not clear, and all the relevant records appear to have been destroyed. Those
facts should make anyone suspicious, particularly given the political overtones
of the case.
Q- Who was
involved?
A- There was something called a State Task Force (STF) that
oversaw the initial actions against Noe, including the search warrant in May of
2005. Members of the STF included: the
Office of the Attorney General, the Office of the Auditor of State, the Office
of the Inspector General, the highway patrol, the Lucas and Franklin County
Prosecutors, the US Attorneys for the Northern and Southern Districts of Ohio,
and staff from the Bureau of Workers Compensation.
There appears to be no documentation at all from this group.
Freedom of Information requests to the AG, AOS, and IG offices yielded no
documents on how the charges were developed. A similar query to the Lucas
County Prosecutor’s office went unanswered.
Q- Isn’t
information about criminal investigations usually secret? For example, isn’t
information presented to a grand jury secret?
A- Grand jury information is certainly secret, but investigative
information that leads to charges is normally exposed during a trial. Still,
the issue here is a little different: how
were the charges developed? Specifically, why did the STF decide to turn an
accounting-based civil case into a criminal one that included the ten-year
minimum RICO (Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization) charge?
Q- Isn’t
that kind of information normally withheld? Aren’t internal deliberations
non-public?
A- Yes. Such records are normally seen as confidential and
for good reason. But there are two important variations here. In June of 2005
the AOS contracted with an external firm to do a special audit of the coin
funds. The charge to the firm was broad but specific: identify all assets (including coins, collectibles,
accounts receivable, real property etc.); review all transactions for
discrepancies; and identify any discrepancy between the value of the funds’
assets and the initial investment made by the OBWC.
However, when the audit was released, in February of 2006,
it almost entirely ignored the original charge:
there was no identification of all assets, no review of all
transactions, and no information on valuation vs. initial investment. Also
ignored were 5 coin fund affiliates in 5 different states. The focus was
limited to only one budget category at one location: coin inventories at Noe’s office in Maumee.
And, although others involved in the coin funds appeared to have made
transactions similar to those for which Noe was indicted, only he was charged
with theft.
Q- That’s
kind of dramatic. But maybe there aren’t any records. Maybe the change was done
informally?
A- That
doesn’t seem possible. A big,
well-respected accounting firm, which has lots of lawyers as well as
accountants, isn’t going to radically change its contract and scope of
engagement based on a hallway
conversation. The firm would have insisted on a revised contract. There have to
have been records –both within the firm and in the records of the state
agencies -- of when and how the change in focus was made.
Q- You said
there was a second issue?
A- The
second issue is the motives of the players on the STF. Almost all of them
repeatedly bragged to the media about the wonderful job they were doing in
defending the public purse. But, as noted elsewhere, they first refused to
release the working papers of the external firm, then they appear to have
destroyed all of their own internal records. If their focus was on the public
good rather than on an effort to get Noe, why didn’t they retain evidence in
support of that fact? If they were so proud of their work, why did they violate
at least the spirit of the records retention law and destroy the records?
Why Was the Trial Held in Toledo? What About
Conflicts of Interest?
Q- Should
the trial have been moved somewhere outside of Lucas County?
A- It shouldn’t have been just the trial but also the
investigation and determination of charges that should have been moved
elsewhere -- Columbus, the state capital, was an eminently reasonable option
here. Otherwise, as happens not infrequently, it should have been turned over
to a special, outside prosecutor. The prosecutor and the judge were subject to
powerful bias based on their own interests. The jury pool was hopelessly
tainted by negative pre-trial publicity, directly and indirectly from the Blade but also from other outlets.
Q- You don’t
think the prosecutor and judge acted appropriately?
A- I don’t think they consciously
did anything wrong, but research in psychology shows clearly that people often
fail to resist what’s called unconscious
bias. They should have known about that and recused themselves.
Q- How were
the prosecutor and judge biased?
A- The prosecutor is married to a judge against whom Noe and
his then wife Bernadette had led repeated electoral attacks. The prosecutor
can’t have been unaware of these. Also, the prosecutor’s step-daughter and her
husband were both reporters for the Blade,
which was relentlessly attacking Noe. Take that together and there’s a mountain
of potential bias -- and that’s especially important because the prosecutor
determined the charges, including the anomalous RICO charge.
Q- And the
judge?
A- Noe had filed ethics charges against him, charges that
the judge had to defend in an investigation by the Ohio Supreme Court. The
judge said he didn’t remember or know that Noe was behind the charges, but that
became beside the point when the issue became public. The judge did know Noe had filed charges against
him before the trial started. And the judge did make one crucial, discretionary
decision -- to prevent presentation of evidence of the funds’ overall success
-- that essentially destroyed Noe’s ability to present a defense. Finally, almost
immediately after the judge’s decision, the Blade
endorsed him in an unusually prominent way for a fiercely contested upcoming
election.
Q- And the
jury?
A- There’s a lot of solid research showing that jurors are
strongly affected by media coverage that’s negative to a defendant. That’s true
even if they don’t believe they have been affected. Often, they’ll say they
don’t read newspapers or watch TV news, but many people get media information secondhand
from family, friends, and co-workers.
Q- But can’t
they be fair anyway?
A- Some certainly can. But the research shows that many don’t
act in an open-minded way after exposure to media bias. Even when they dismiss
the media coverage or other information they’ve received, and argue they can be
fair, the research shows they often act in a biased way. The jury foreman later
submitted an affidavit stating that they jury felt pressured by public opinion
not just to convict, but to do so quickly.
Q- Most
major trials get some media coverage – wouldn’t this mean they’d all have to be
moved? That would be expensive and difficult.
A- Often, media coverage doesn’t matter much because a lot
of people don’t pay attention to an occasional article on criminal issues. But
in Noe’s case there was almost a year and a half of constant coverage of the
front page variety, not to mention continuous TV, radio, and political
advertising that was also prevalent at the time of the trial. Remember that the
jury wasn’t sequestered.
Q- Did the
Noe jury react the same way as the research suggest?
A- It certainly appears they did. A large number of prospective
jurors had to be dismissed right away because they said they’d formed an
opinion – this despite having previously responded to a questionnaire that was
supposed to weed such people out.
Q- “Stealth
jurors” are people who have biases for or against a defendant and want to be on
a jury to act on their feelings – they are people with conscious bias who
conceal that in order to be selected. Do you think stealth jurors were a
problem in Noe’s case?
A- There’s no way to know for sure. But, given the research
on this topic, and given the supercharged political nature of this trial, it
seems likely that at least one juror wanted to be on the case to enforce some
personal belief.
Q- What
should be done to avoid the kind of bias Noe faced?
A- First understand that such extreme cases will be rare. When
you look at the specifics of the Noe case, including especially the media bias
and the fact that he had been a leader in confronting the political party to
which the prosecutor and judge belonged -- as well as those individuals
directly -- it’s unlikely that any jurisdiction will see such a case more often
than once in a generation – if that often. The solution is for the Ohio Supreme
Court to step in when unusual circumstances are revealed. In fact, as discussed
in another of these Q and As, they now seem to have decided to do that.
Has the Ohio Supreme Court Changed Its Mind
About the Dangers of Potential Bias?
Q- What about
the 2017 Ohio Supreme Court case ruling on judicial “appearance of impropriety”?
A- In 2017, the Ohio Supreme Court ordered a retrial with a
new judge in a case where the original judge, Judge Crawford, was very slightly
acquainted with someone involved with the accused. The Supreme Court’s Chief
Justice, who delivered the ruling, emphasized that she had no reason to believe
the original judge acted in biased way, but employed majestic and powerful
language to stress that the Court had to protect against even “the appearance
of impropriety.” Judge O’Connor wrote, in part: “…even in cases where no
evidence of actual bias or prejudice is apparent, a judge’s disqualification
may be appropriate to avoid an appearance of impropriety or when the public’s
confidence in the integrity of the judicial system is at issue.”
The Toledo Blade,
the paper that pursued Noe, strongly concurred with Judge O’Connor. If the Crawford
case had an appearance of impropriety rank of “1,” the Noe case would rank as
“100.” The appearance of impropriety was absolutely pervasive in Noe’s case. So,
yes, the Supreme Court has changed its mind.
Was Your Research Balanced?
Q- Didn’t you
get a lot of help from Noe’s friends? Why didn’t you talk to people on the
other side?
A- First, I didn’t talk to anyone at any length about the substance
of Coingate until I was well into the project. I really had no important
conversations until I had read all of the core information: the Blade
and other media coverage, the court documents, and the transcripts. In part,
this delay in talking to people was because I wanted to form my own opinion. In
part it was also because I wanted to be efficient when I did interviews –
ill-informed questions waste time and annoy people. Finally, as noted on the
website, in my early conversations with Noe I avoided substance. I didn’t
really interview him in the sense of asking focused questions about what
happened and what he did until I was essentially finished with the research.
It’s true that the people I wound up talking to were in fact
mostly friends of Noe:
- His sister Beth June has helped with logistics of the prison visits and with contact information.
- A handful of friends and family read early drafts and commented. None had special or important knowledge of the case.
- A friend of Noe offered the help of an artist for the cover. The artist did a wonderful job (in a few hours) and I’m very grateful because, while I had the idea for a drawing, I don’t have the talent to do it.
- No one offered me money or anything of value beyond a couple of cups of coffee. On the other hand, I’ve had non-trivial expenses, primarily for travel, that I doubt will be covered by book sales. I also was about to launch a business helping people with biographies or auto-biographies that I put on hold to do this. I can’t say with certainty that I lost money as a result of the decision to do this book instead of the business, but I’d like to think I did because I thought the business would be modestly remunerative (and fun).
I did talk to a number of people in the coin industry who
were recommended by Noe. They offered useful advice about their area, and one
was also a very good manuscript reader. But I think all were disappointed that
there wasn’t more in the book about coins and the industry.
I had expected to need help on legal issues and had lined up
assistance in that area, but wound up deciding that Coingate wasn’t really
about technical aspects of the law. Still, two very experienced lawyers – one
with criminal experience and one with a civil law background -- did read the
final manuscript and offered valuable comments.
Three of the five people who were the most engaged in
critiquing the manuscript had never heard of Noe until I asked for their help.
My original idea was to do lots of interviews, but that
changed for two reasons: 1) the first
two contacts I made with people who had Toledo political connections resulted
in nothing because they (politely) refused to talk to me. Even with a promise
of anonymity, they said they were too afraid of retaliation from the Blade; 2) After this, and some further
reflection, I decided that more information on the political context in Toledo
wasn’t really useful to the direction I had chosen. Even if I’d come to a
different conclusion, it seemed I was very unlikely to get balanced commentary.
I didn’t contact the former Blade reporters because I thought it very unlikely they would talk
to me – they are still employed in the profession and are therefore likely
vulnerable if they have thoughts at variance with what the Blade published in its stories and editorials. Perhaps they’ll want
to comment on the Facebook page or send articles to post on the website – if
the latter, I would expect to publish in full.
I didn’t try to talk to the judge because I was advised by
everyone I asked that he would almost certainly refuse.
I did send questions to the prosecutors by certified mail
but they never acknowledged or replied.
I didn’t think I’d get much help from former state officials,
but did try to get documents from their offices that could then have been
useful material for interviews. As recounted elsewhere, this effort failed
totally.