My lastest post to the Political State Report:

State Treasurer Hires Defense Attorneys

The Cincinnati Post is reporting that on Friday Joseph Deters, State of Ohio Treasurer, hired two Cincinnati area defense attorneys to assist in rebutting allegations Deters was involved in a cover-up of an alleged theft of money from the property room of the Hamilton County prosecutor's office. Deters was Hamilton County Prosecutor for 7 years prior to being elected Ohio Treasurer in 1998. Sources told the Post that Merlyn Shiverdecker and R. Scott Croswell III were hired by Deters, but none of the three would confirm the story.

The allegations include Joseph Deters and Jim Harper involvement in the cover-up of the theft of $2,700 from the missing from an evidence room in the persecutor’s office. Pete Marshall, a former employee of the prosecutor's office, was reportedly going to be charged in connection with the absent money, but to date has not been charged. Harper was a former assistant prosecutor under Deters and currently works for the Treasurer. Deters denied any role in the alleged cover-up and stated he did nothing at all wrong.

The main elements of the public actions in the alleged cover-up were reported by the Cincinnati Post as follows:

Investigators, Deters said, talked to him about a case in which a low-level drug dealer was arrested and had drugs and $1,700 in cash confiscated from him. That was the money that later was missing from the evidence room.

Deters admitted that he later had his office cut a $1,700 check from the Prosecutor's Law Enforcement Trust Fund to replace the missing money. The investigators did not mention the other $1,000 in missing funds, Deters said.

That happened in September 1998, when Deters was successfully campaigning to become Ohio treasurer, an office that handles and invests state money.

Harper, Deters said, issued a check to the City of Cincinnati, the legal owner of the confiscated money.

Deters was unsure why that check was cut, but he "guessed" it was because city officials -- "Those guys live and die on forfeiture money," he said -- wanted restitution in the case.