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Thursday, April 29, 2010
Inmates smuggle tobacco via Governor’s house
Security has been so lax at the Governor’s Residence that prison inmates working in the garden and kitchen were able to run a lucrative tobacco smuggling business from the house and they had free access to knives, axes and chainsaws with no accountability, according to a scathing report issued Thursday, April 29 by state Inspector General Tom Charles.
Inmates from Pickaway Correctional Institution working at the Govenor’s Residence were permitted to walk unescorted outside the mansion fence where they received curb-side deliveries of contraband in broad daylight, the report said. Prisoners used a drop ceiling in a half-bathroom to stash tobacco, which is not permitted in state prisons.
The inspector general began investigating Feb. 4, three weeks after a Strickland political appointee canceled a sting planned by the Ohio Highway Patrol at the residence. Prison officials caught wind of a plan by inmates working at the residence to have a relative drop a “six-pack” at “Red’s House.” The patrol planned a sting operation but state Department of Public Safety Director Cathy Collins-Taylor canceled the sting after consulting with Gov. Ted Strickland’s top legal aide, Kent Markus, and his chief of staff, John Haseley.
Collins-Taylor and Patrol Lt. Joe Mannion, who supervises the unit that protects the governor and first lady, did not tell the truth under oath with investigators, the report said.
The idea that the sting was canceled because it presented a danger to Strickland, his wife and their dinner guests on Jan. 10 was a pretext, the report said. “…it is clear that avoiding political embarrassment to the governor was a key factor.”
The report issued blistering criticism of Mannion: “…he has shown himself to be more committed to image protection than executive protection.”
Strickland issued a written response, saying he remains confident in Collins-Taylor, Mannion and Patrol Superintendent David Dicken. “I believe that the decisions in this case were made by people acting in good faith. If decisions were made in order to protect me from some kind of embarrassment, that was unnecessary,” Strickland said.
Prisoners have worked at the Governor’s Residence, which is a mansion in Bexley just east of downtown Columbus, since the 1960s.
Strickland, a Democrat, will face a re-election challenge from Republican John Kasich in November.
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Strickland leads Kasich, poll finds
A new poll released Thursday, April 29, shows Democrat Ted Strickland holding a six-point lead over Republican challenger John Kasich in the gubernatorial election.
Registered Ohio voters favor Strickland over Kasich, 44- to 38-percent, according to a poll by Quinnipiac University. Strickland and Kasich face off in November.
Despite the modest lead, Strickland still faces challenges: only 37 percent of voters say the governor has kept campaign promises and the race is close even though 62 percent of the voters don’t know enough about Kasich to have an opinion of him, according to Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
In the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate on Tuesday, Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher leads Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner 41- to 24-percent, although a third of likely voters are still undecided, the poll said. The winner will go up against former Congressman Rob Portman of Cincinnati.
The poll found that both Fisher and Brunner would beat Portman, who is a former Bush White House budget director and trade representative. Fisher holds a three-point lead over Portman while Brunner holds a four-point lead.
“Ohio is upholding its reputation as a battleground state. Democrats seem to have a slight edge in the key races, but those leads are small and have gone back and forth in recent months. As has historically been the key in Ohio elections, the undecided vote — many of whom are independents — could well hold the balance of power come November,” Brown said.
The poll also found that 45 percent of Ohio voters approve of the job President Obama is doing and 44 percent say he is a better president than George W. Bush.
Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,568 registered Ohio voters from April 21-26. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 points.
