He who has the gold enforces the rules
Part 7 (Conclusion)
Open letter to Congressmen Jim Jordan and Mike Turner
Dear Sirs,
As two of Ohio’s Representatives to Congress who also serve on the House Committee for Oversight and Government Reform, I’m writing to ask your support for U.S. Senator Cory Booker’s and U.S. Senator Rand Paul’s bipartisan legislation to advance criminal justice reform. The U.S. has about five percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of the planet’s prison population. A significant number of those incarcerated are Brown and Black minorities serving time for low-level nonviolent criminal acts. Although that is a disturbing statistic, I’m writing today to express my concern for another area of our criminal justice code in dire need of reform, which would be the widespread protection from incarceration afforded political class insiders. You both should be familiar with certain aspects of this as I gave Mr. Jordan related information in November 2010 at the Washington Heights Baptist Church in Centerville. Mr. Turner, I also left a copy of my report to the FBI with your Dayton office in August, 2012 when they assured me that the report would be sent to Tim Boudreaux, one of your Washington staffers. In any case, today I want to review with you my investigation with the hope you can put it in context with Senator Paul’s and Senator Booker’s REDEEM Act. There are three distinct cases that reinforce the notion that the political class in Greene and Clarke County disregard due process and the rule of law to protect certain insiders.
Former Greene County Treasurer James Schmidt: In 2010 Mr. Schmidt pled guilty to the following charges, some of which were downgraded from felony to misdemeanor as part of the plea bargain agreement; unlawful interest in a public contract, ethics conflict of interest, improper compensation and unauthorized use of (government) property. The facts reveal overwhelming evidence of a cover-up to not only lighten Schmidt’s sentence, but to build a firewall between other elected officials and the rule of law.
- Mrs. Schmidt is First Assistant to Steve Haller, Greene County Prosecutor. Although Haller eventually recused himself from the investigation, he didn’t do so until four or five years after The Ohio Ethics Commission began theirs.
- For decades Prosecutor Haller (Secretary) and Treasurer Schmidt (Treasurer) sat together on the Executive Board of the Greene County Republican Central Committee.
- Trial documents reveal that for nearly 20 years Schmidt practiced “unlawful interest in a public contract.” To explain, Mr. Schmidt was illegally compensated for taxpayer- funded probate work under the auspices of Greene County Probate Court Judge Robert Hagler. Judge Hagler was not disciplined or reprimanded, nor is OCGJ aware of the State of Ohio or any other entity investigating Hagler’s role in assigning the probate work to Schmidt.
The Monte Zinn-Dennis Anuszewski Paradox: In 1996 Monte Zinn, a longtime Dave Hobson insider, pled guilty to felony charges including fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud by illegally enabling the immigration of more than a dozen teenage boys from the island of Fiji. Zinn was sentenced to two years’ probation and ordered to pay a $1500 fine. Zinn could have received five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the immigration violations alone. Human trafficking allegations were not addressed in the plea bargain. In 2010 Dennis Anuszewski was sentenced to ten years in prison for having kiddie porn on his personal computer, arguably a victimless crime. There were striking similarities as both cases were under the jurisdiction of the Clark County Prosecutor, Clark County Common Pleas Court, the same U.S. District Court, and the same U.S. Attorney (Southern District of Ohio). Even more enlightening is that Clark County Prosecutor Stephen A. Schumaker, who is now the Ohio Assistant Attorney General to Mike DeWine, initially led the prosecution in both cases. It’s unimaginable the profoundly divergent outcomes in these two cases are a coincidence and not a transparent attempt to shield GOP insider Monte Zinn from accountability to the rule of law.
The Greene County – Dayton Development Coalition 2003 BRAC Initiative Agreement: In 2011 Paul Magliochetti, who founded lobbying firm PMA Group, began serving a 27 month prison term for making illegal campaign contributions to dozens of congressmen, including Dave Hobson and Steve Austria. Mr. and Mrs. Austria both served on the Coalition’s Wright Patt 2010 Advisory Committee that steered the BRAC contract toward the Coalition, the PMA Group and another prolific Hobson/Austria campaign contributor, The Greentree Group, a family owned defense contractor in Beavercreek, Ohio. Since 2003, three generations of Greenwoods contributed over $200,000 to Dave Hobson, Steve Austria and other Republicans. Greentree CEO Travis Greenwood’s 12-year-old daughter gave $2100 to Mike Dewine’s failed Senate campaign in 2006, pointing to evidence that Mr. Greenwood engineered an illegal contribution to Mike DeWine. Do you really believe that Caitlyn Greenwood withdrew over two thousand dollars from her piggy bank or her college fund on her own volition? If not, Travis Greenwood is guilty of the same crime as Paul Magliochetti who was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison.
These three cases represent just the tip of the iceberg that signal the corruption under the watch of the political class in Greene and Clark County led by Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine for more than 25 years. It’s time you dust off our 2012 report to the FBI. If you have misplaced it, OCGJ can provide another copy. Perhaps with your support for criminal justice reform, we can restore the founders vision of equal justice for all, including political class insiders.
Respectfully,
John Mitchel
Founder, Ohio Citizens Grand Jury
