Less than a month after the Medina county commissioners called for an investigation into county Auditor Mike Kovack, the employee who brought the accusations wrote an email to the state auditor, the Ohio Ethics Commission and the FBI calling the local investigation a sham.
“I am asking for help to investigate this cover-up as our local prosecutor, Dean Holman, has turned over this case to his buddy Kevin Baxter,” the Erie County prosecutor appointed to handle the case, Anne Murphy wrote in the July 23 email. “All are Democrats, and the investigation started in March when Sheriff Tom Miller got involved.”
Murphy — who now works for Republican county Treasurer John Burke — accused Miller, also a Republican, and his staff of botching the investigation by failing to “subpoena computers, files, or printers — nor interview the employee making the charges.”
Miller dismissed Murphy’s accusations.
“The investigation concerning the allegation made against Auditor Michael Kovack has proceeded in a deliberate and professional manner,” Miller said in a prepared statement.
“The Medina County Sheriff’s Office began its investigation in March of 2014 and has since included the Ohio Ethics Commission and the Ohio Auditor’s Office in its review.
“The suggestion that this multi-agency investigation is tainted by partisan politics is completely baseless.”
Holman agreed.
“The comments are without merit and undeserving of a response,” Holman said in a prepared statement. “The matter has been referred to Special Prosecutor Kevin Baxter, who has requested that public officials refrain from making public comment until his review is complete.”
Baxter did not return a request for comment. Murphy declined to be interviewed but answered written questions via email.
Asked why she wrote the email, Murphy responded: “The email was sent in late July because something just didn’t seem right to me.
“I was concerned that the whole matter … was just being covered up,” she said, “because several months had passed without anything being done in what seemed to be a relatively straightforward case.”
Kovack declined to comment, but referred questions to his attorney, Steve Bailey.
Bailey said Murphy’s accusations are not believable.
“I am dumbfounded,” Bailey said. “You couldn’t get Dean Holman to enter into collusion with anybody. Dean has been prosecutor for longer than any other person in the history of this county — and that’s not an accident.
“He’s as straight a guy as there is.”
Bailey also said he couldn’t understand why Murphy would think Miller — a Republican — would conspire to exonerate a Democrat.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “Really, it’s beyond ludicrous.”
In addition to the state and federal agencies, Murphy also sent the July 23 email to several news media: Cleveland television stations 19 Action News, News Net 5, WKYC and Fox 8, as well as the Post Newspapers.
All recipients were sent “blind carbon copies,” meaning the recipients were not informed that the others received the same email.
The Gazette, which was not included as a recipient, obtained the email from the county commissioners’ office through a public records request.
Bailey accused Murphy of political motivations for bringing the accusations, which included that Kovack used the resources of his office in election campaigns, ran a private rental business from the auditor’s office and had pornography on a county laptop.
As evidence, Bailey cited a July 21 letter she sent to Kovack at his office.
The letter contains a website print-out describing how to change political parties and includes a handwritten note to Kovack: “Thought you might want some info on changing your political party. Being a Republican is great!”
Bailey said, “If there’s any question that this is politically motivated, I think that letter answers the question.”
Asked about the letter, Murphy wrote in her email response that she sent Kovack the letter because she suspected the auditor had been using pseudonyms like “Medina Republican” and “Republicans for Kovack” in online comments to local news stories published on a Cleveland website.
Kovack has served as county auditor since 1993 and is running for re-election on Nov. 4. He is challenged by Republican Keith Dirham, the Medina City finance director.
Murphy had worked in the auditor’s office for about six months, from October 2012 to April 2013. In her March 29, 2013 ,resignation letter, which The Gazette also obtained through public records request, she said she was resigning because she felt “undervalued, underutilized and belittled.”
“I still think very highly of you as our auditor and will continue to support you in that role,” she wrote.
County Commissioner Pat Geissman has said it was Murphy who provided her with a computer CD containing files with information on election campaigns, Kovack’s rental properties and pornography, which she passed on to the prosecutor with the July 1 letter.
Murphy has said she got the CD from Annette Ehrlich, Kovack’s former information technology manager who was fired last week after a confrontation with Kovack’s employees last month.
The commissioners said they were unaware that the sheriff’s investigation began in March.
Sheriff Capt. Kenneth Baca told The Gazette that both Ehrlich and Kovack had contacted the sheriff’s office on March 21 — Ehrlich to report her allegations and Kovack to offer his cooperation in the investigation.
Baca said Ehrlich was interviewed several days later.
Geissman said she had heard rumors of an investigation into allegations of campaign activity in the auditor’s office but “didn’t want to believe they were true.”
Geissman insisted the commissioners pass along Murphy’s CD to Holman. She also sent the CD to both the Ohio Ethics Commission and Ohio Elections Commissions.
Geissman said she is frustrated the investigation has taken so long.
“It’s like this hot potato that nobody wants to deal with,” she said. “I just wish somebody would do their job.”
Geissman declined to say she suspected a cover-up, but said the sheriff needs help in the investigation.
“I think the sheriff should call in BCI (Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation) so that it’s an impartial group conducting the investigation,” Geissman said.
Commissioner Adam Friedrick said he supported Geissman’s efforts.
“If I had any objections, I’d say it,” he said. “The commissioners’ responsibility is, as information is brought to us, to turn it over to the prosecutor and the investigators.”
Friedrick said the investigation should not involve politics.
“You just have to hope that people are acting on the truth, and not based on relationships and political beliefs involved here,” he said. “The right thing to do is the right thing to do.”
The third commissioner, Steve Hambley, said he doubts Murphy’s accusations of a conspiracy are true because he trusts the prosecutor and sheriff.
“I have the utmost confidence in Sheriff Miller’s procedures. I’m not going to secondguess the sheriff,” he said. “And Dean has always been a very good prosecutor, and he’s honest in his integrity.”
Hambley declined to speculate whether Murphy’s actions were politically motivated.
“I’m not going to pass judgment on anyone’s motivations. I’ll let the facts speak for themselves,” he said. “I will say it’s campaign season, and the first place people look is the political motivation.”
Contact reporter Nick Glunt at (330) 721-4048 or nglunt@medina-gazette.com. Follow him on Twitter @ngfalcon.
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