Posted on 04/21/2005 1:19:50 PM PDT by Columbus Dawg
-- A federal grand jury has subpoenaed personnel and payroll records for five current and former House Republican caucus employees as part of its public corruption investigation of former Speaker Larry Householder.
Issued March 29, the subpoena requests records on Melissa (Missy) Craddock, the House GOP's executive policy assistant for health and human services, and Dan Baker, a budget analyst.
The former House employees whose records were subpoenaed are Dwight Crum, Megan Teeters and Steven Cuckler.
Scott Borgemenke, chief of staff for Speaker Jon Husted, said the grand jury's request for records on a sixth person, Tim Mishler, was misdirected. He said Mishler is a former employee of the Ohio House Republican Campaign Committee.
Craddock, 29, is a former aide to Rep. Charles Calvert, a Medina Republican. Baker, 24, is Husted's former administrative assistant. Both declined to comment. Crum, Teeters and Cuckler were senior aides to Householder and his chief of staff, Brett Buerck.
Crum, 37, would not comment, and Teeters and Cuckler did not return phone calls.
Crum, who was Householder's chief spokesman, now works for the House GOP campaign committee.
He was widely criticized after The Plain Dealer reported last year that he co-authored a 109-page plan to destroy the political career of Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.
Crum wrote the report with Buerck and Householder's chief fund-raiser, Kyle Sisk. Householder, Buerck and Sisk are the primary targets of the federal probe. Householder is now Perry County auditor.
Teeters, 27, was Buerck's top aide until she left in August 2003.
Personnel records show that Buerck gave her glowing evaluations, reserving his most effusive praise for a trait he particularly valued -- confidentiality -- writing, "Still the best."
Teeters is married to Nick Lashutka, the son of former Columbus Mayor Greg Lashutka.
Cuckler, 30, had been Householder's deputy chief legal counsel for almost 16 months when it was revealed that he didn't have a law license because he had twice failed the Ohio bar exam. He was publicly reprimanded by the Ohio Supreme Court in March 2004 for misrepresenting himself as a lawyer.
Now licensed, Cuckler is vice mayor of Delaware, Ohio.
The subpoena specifically asks for requests for leaves of absence and outside employment. Payroll records show that House employees commonly sought leaves to work on political campaigns. They also show that the House altered leave records on at least one occasion.
The alteration occurred after a Plain Dealer reporter went to New Lexington in July 2003 to review campaign reports filed by Perry County Commissioner Thad Cooperrider, one of Householder's closest friends. After learning about the visit, Buerck dispatched Joe Clark, a Householder aide, to Perry County to file 98 pages of amended reports on Cooperrider's behalf.
The Plain Dealer then asked to review Clark's personnel file to determine whether he was on the state payroll when he was fixing Cooperrider's campaign records.
Following the request, Kim Flasher, the House's chief administrative officer, placed a memo in Clark's file reporting that Clark's attendance in Columbus had been "recorded incorrectly" and that he had repaid the state for the two days he spent in Perry County.
I noticed that the Plain Dealer mentioned Republican and/or GOP only six times. Plus they made sure to mention every public official that has ever shook hands with the accused.
Not too bad, I would have figured they would have mentioned Republican and/or GOP at least 10 times in a story this long.
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