Ohio Bureau of Worker's Comp's financial chief lived in high style

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1150014664244090.xml&coll=2

BWC official liked being go-to guy, others say BWC's 'superstar' relished his role, lifestyle
Prison sentence now looms in wake of Gasper's guilty plea
Gasper now faces time in prison for state scandal

Sunday, June 11, 2006
T.C. Brown and Sandy Theis
Plain Dealer Reporters

Columbus- Terry Gasper lived the high life on a civil servant's salary.

He financed his fine living through the generosity of others - brokers and dealers eager to feast at the in vestment trough he man aged at the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Com pensation. Overflowing with billions of dollars, it is one of the state's largest investment pools.

Those indebted to Gasper for lucrative state investment contracts gave him unfettered access to a luxurious $485,000 condo in the Florida Keys at the Coral Harbour Club, a condo complex with deep-water docks, a heated swimming pool, lighted tennis courts and an oceanfront Tiki hut.

They also wined and dined him at some of the top restaurants in Cleveland and Columbus. A marketer whom prosecutors have yet to identify provided $9,000 in college tuition for his son. And he got a $25,000 investment in a limited partnership and many thousands of dollars in meals, concert and sporting event tickets and other gifts...

When I followed the story religiously, a name came up as a head of BWC investments who directly intervened on Noe's behalf - first to cover for a horrible audit of the first fund (I think this fellow actually wrote the response to the auditors that Noe then used), and then went to bat to guarantee that Noe received the second $25million. Last name Cowman (robert? richard?). His name came up in a few Blade articles explaining how, despite the early warning signs of problems with Noe's original "investment fund", Noe was able to get a second $25 million (and indeed was poised to get a third $25 million investment from the BWC, when the Blade first broke the story of the coin fund in March of 2005.

I kept waiting for his name to resurface - but it hasn't. If my suspicions (just based on close reading, not on any information other than that in the public domain) - his name will resurface - and possibly lead to even more ripples of corruption. See, the last I read of him he had gotten a new position - Financial Investment Director for the state public employee pension fund. As I understand it, this state-tax payer fund has greater restrictions in terms of the percentage of the fund that can be invested by a director's choice/selection (that is most of the investments are somehow fixed) - the size of the fund is HUGE -and the size of the amount that can be directed to be invested in different ways DWARFS the size of the BWC fund - making the BWC funds (and corruption) mere pennies to the dollar compared to this fund. If my wild speculation is correct - a big corrupt pay-to-play player has been put in the tax payer's hen house.

Remember the name - I predict that when he falls - the scandals will make the BWC failures look like kiddie play antics. Of course, I could be very wrong.