By: Joe Strupp The Ohio Supreme Court, in a 5-2 ruling Wednesday, ordered the state's Workers Compensation Bureau to release all transaction records related to the agency's controversial rare coin investments to The Blade of Toledo.
"Given the unique circumstances of this case, it appears beyond doubt that the requested records are public records subject to disclosure," the court wrote in its opinion.
Blade editor Ron Royhab praised the decision, which followed the Blade's March 23 lawsuit seeking access to the documents that detail transactions made since the WCB began investing in rare coins in 1998. The Blade had received thousands of pages of records since filing the lawsuit, but some had portions of information redacted and others were still being withheld, according to Royhab.
"There were certain records the bureau would not give without redacting them because they said they were proprietary," Royhab told E&P. "We argued that that was not the case."
Revelations by The Blade that hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds had been lost through the investments have sparked numerous investigations into the scheme, and drawn praise for the newspaper, which continues to report on the case today.
At the center of the scandal is Republican fundraiser Tom Noe, who helped orchestrate the deals as the central investor of the funds.
Royhab said the paper is still seeking other documents related to the investments, such as those from Gov. Bob Taft, and have filed public records requests with his office as well.
"We are going to keep on this story and keep going after what records we need," he said. "But this win in the Supreme Court just upholds the law in Ohio that public records are public. This is a very significant ruling."
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