AG candidate Steve Dettelbach hits opponent Dave Yost hard on ECOT

Democratic Attorney General candidate Steve Dettelbach on Tuesday criticized how his Republican opponent Ohio Auditor Dave Yost handled a whistleblower's complaint of fraud at the now shuttered charter school, Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, first reported by the Associated Press.(Dettelbach campaign, Ohio auditor's office)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Democratic Attorney General candidate Steve Dettelbach on Tuesday accused his Republican opponent, Ohio Auditor Dave Yost, of mishandling a whistleblower's complaint of fraud at the now-shuttered online charter school, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow.

As first reported by the Associated Press, the whistleblower last year told the auditor's office that the school purposefully overstated student data linked to the dollar amount it receives from the state, the AP reported. This alleged wrongdoing happened after the state had already determined the school overrepresented its attendance in 2016, and that the state had overpaid the school -- to the tune of $60 million.

The auditor's office met the whistle blower the three times, auditor's office spokesman Ben Marrison said.

The whistleblower first contacted the auditor's office around May 1 of last year, and met with them about three weeks later, on May 24. The auditor's office would not comment on his allegations, because they are still being audited.

The individual was interviewed by a department in the auditor's office that includes criminal investigators and forensic auditors. The office has, since 2011, been involved in 150 criminal convictions.

It's standard procedure to refer a whistleblower complaint to a local prosecutor or handle the case in coordination with local prosecutors if the allegations are substantiated, Marrison said.

"Such referrals to a prosecutor or law enforcement typically occur at the conclusion of an audit," Marrison wrote in an email.

Dettelbach, a former federal prosecutor, told reporters on a conference call that Yost should have taken the allegations to a law enforcement entity immediately.

"When a credible whistleblower comes forward with inside information that there was intentional fraud that is going on, you do not sit on that for a year. You do not put it into some process where it marinates as part of a routine audit," Dettelbach said. "You pick up the phone immediately and you refer it to an independent criminal investigative agency."

Dettelbach said the whistleblower's claims went beyond normal discrepancies in audits, such as improper bookkeeping.

"It should be immediately be taken out of the normal audit queue and sent over to criminal investigators who can handle it," Dettelbach said.

The auditor's office and Yost's campaign fired back against Dettelbach's critique.

"Steve Dettelbach does not have anything close to all of the facts in this case. This is nothing but a political stunt," Marrison, of the auditor's office, said. "This office has aggressively audited ECOT's claims for funding, and these allegations were thoroughly investigated as well."

"It looks like Steve Dettelbach only rushes to conclusions when he's dealing with a political opponent," Yost campaign spokesman Carlo LoParo said. "The fact is Dettelbach will say and do anything to get elected, even interfere with an official investigation. He should know better."

Dettelbach said when there is evidence of intentional fraud, auditors should not handle the allegations with a business-as-usual attitude. He wondered if evidence connected to the allegations was preserved.

He questioned whether Yost's response was due to his connections to ECOT -- the auditor received at least $29,000 in campaign contributions from ECOT and ECOT affiliated individuals over the years. Yost attended the 2014 ECOT graduation and delivered a commencement address at an ECOT graduation in 2015.

"It appears that the response from Dave Yost is exactly what one might expect -- not from somebody who is a criminal investigator or a criminal prosecutor, who wants to catch people if they've done something criminal, but from somebody who's a politician who is caught in a conflict of interest," Dettelbach said.

Responding to a reporter's question about whether the auditor's office was required to inform law enforcement, Dettelbach had choice words.

"This is the difference between somebody who looks at this like a bookkeeper and somebody who looks at this like a prosecutor," Dettelbach said. "It's about lying and cheating and stealing. We have laws in Ohio that cover that regardless of whatever internal rules somebody writes. It certainly passes the threshold of credible evidence of fraud that an independent criminal investigator ought to look at."

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