Ex-Ohio Official Pleads Guilty to Charges
    By Andrew Welsh-Huggins
    The Associated Press

    Wednesday 07 June 2006

    Columbus, Ohio - A former senior official at Ohio's $15 billion insurance fund for injured workers pleaded guilty to federal and state charges Wednesday, admitting that he took bribes in exchange for government investment opportunities.

    Terrence Gasper, 59, also said he was working with prosecutors in their continuing investigation into the state scandal.

    Gasper, the first official of the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation to be charged in the investment scandal, pleaded guilty in US District Court in Akron to one count of racketeering for accepting a gift for business deals, then entered a plea to ethics and other charges in Franklin County Common Pleas Court in Columbus.

    Gasper acknowledged in the federal case that he accepted tuition for his son and stays at a Florida condominium in exchange for business deals with the bureau's $15 billion investment fund.

    He also said he accepted $25,000 from a dealer who handled the agency's troubled investment in rare coins.

    In exchange for the $25,000, Gasper recommended a second investment of $25 million with coin dealer Tom Noe, the prominent GOP donor at the heart of a state political scandal, prosecutors say.

    Noe pleaded guilty last week to illegally funneling money to President Bush's re-election campaign. He has pleaded not guilty to state charges of stealing more than $1 million from the fund money invested in coins.

    The investigation has shaken the state's Republican-dominated government. It led to ethics charges against Gov. Bob Taft, who pleaded no contest for failing to report gifts such as golf outings, and to the ouster of the bureau's administrator, the firing of its chief investment officer and an overhaul of the fund's investment operations.

    After the federal hearing, Gasper let out a deep sigh and shook the hands of federal prosecutors. He would not comment outside court but said during the hearing that he was "more than willing" to help with the investigation.

    The charges against him were just part of an expected series of charges against others connected with the bureau's investments, Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien has said.

    Under federal sentencing guidelines, Gasper faces a sentence of five years and 10 months to seven years and three months in prison. US District Judge David D. Dowd Jr., who could depart from that range, said he will not sentence Gasper until Gasper is through assisting the government investigation.