Coingate and RICO
For those who haven’t been following this story, a top Bush-Cheney ‘04 fundraiser and prominent Ohio GOP hack has come under scrutiny for his handling of $50 million in state money. The long and short of it is, he invested the taxpayer cash in rare coins and other questionable investments and lost or stole quite a bit of it.
Noe was a ‘pioneer’ in the Bush campaign (along with Jack Abramoff), meaning he raised over $100k for the president’s reelection. He has been charged separately in federal court for illegally raising over $45k of that money.
Noe has finally been indicted in the Ohio scam (what the press is calling ‘Coingate’) and he’s facing up to 175 years in jail. But here’s the kicker:
Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien said Noe faces a mandatory minimum of 10 years behind bars if he is convicted of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, a first-degree felony patterned after the federal racketeering law often used against suspected mobsters.
Yep, RICO– the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act. We’ve pointed out here in the past that another notable Republican, Tommy “The Hammer” DeLay (R-Leavenworth), was charged under RICO, as well as fictional gangster Corrado “Junior” Soprano (Don-North Jersey).
Essentially, it refers to the fact that Noe created a bunch of phony organizations and shell companies and forged documents in an effort to hide the path of all the cash he was stealing. It’s a fancy version of money-laundering. Abramoff did the same thing with the Capital Athletic Foundation et al.
According to http://www.ricoact.com/, “RICO was intended to destroy the Mafia.” But in recent years, RICO has been used more frequently in other areas– “it is applied to individuals, businesses, political protest groups, and terrorist organizations.” Hmmm… Noe would probably prefer we just stick to the Mafia comparisons…