COIN INDUSTRY LETTERS SUPPORT TOM NOE

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V23 2020 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 23, Number 26, June 28, 2020, Article 31

It's been a while since we've heard about Tom Noe, the coin dealer imprisoned for financial misdealings in Ohio. Here's an excerpt from this weekend's Toledo Blade article. I corrected the article's spelling of Steve Ivy's name. -Editor

Letters to Gov. Mike DeWine urging him to grant clemency to Coingate central figure Tom Noe came with something that could help in any plan for the former Toledo area coin dealer to pay back the $12.7 million in taxpayer funding he still owes — job offers.

"As an industry leader, I ask you to enable Tom to return to our community where he would be warmly welcomed and in fact has offers of employment from major companies including my own 86-year-old firm, Kagin's, Inc.," wrote Donald H. Kagin, a California coin dealer and former vice president of the American Numismatic Association. He wrote to the governor twice last year on Noe's behalf.

"This action would result in a win-win-win outcome since Tom would be able to make financial restitution while contributing to the corporate world and our industry in general," he wrote in November.

On April 17, Mr. DeWine, a Republican, granted clemency to Noe, a former Lucas County Republican Party chairman. Noe walked out of prison more than six years early as part of a broader effort to reduce the population of Ohio prisons infected with coronavirus.

In the process the governor bucked the Ohio Parole Board, which had just voted for the fourth time — this time unanimously — that Noe not be released.

Noe, 65, had served nearly 12 years of an 18-year state sentence for stealing nearly $13 million from two rare coin investment funds totaling $50 million that he arranged and managed for the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation, the state insurance fund for injured workers.

He had previously served nearly two years in federal prison for illegal funneling campaign contributions through conduits to the 2004 re-election campaign of then President George W. Bush.

Mr. DeWine received about 25 letters related to Noe during 2019 — the governor's first year in office, according to documents released in response to a public records request from The Blade.

All of the writers urged the governor to release Noe. The Blade has also requested related correspondence for this year.

Steve Ivy, chairman of Dallas-based Heritage Auctions, was among the letter writers to Mr. DeWine and his predecessor, Gov. John Kasich, to urge the release of his friend of nearly 40 years. He also testified on Noe's behalf at his 2018 clemency hearing.

He told The Blade that Heritage's interest in hiring Noe is sincere but has not gone beyond that.

"We have every intention of talking with Tom when this coronavirus mess is over," Mr. Ivy said.

"Most coin dealers I know feel the same way about Tom that I do despite his conviction in a court of law, and by the press," he wrote.

As a general rule, someone dealing in investment coins would not have to be bonded unless perhaps when dealing with high-dollar transactions, said Jimmy Hayes, executive director of the Industry Council for Tangible Assets. The Georgia-headquartered council is a national trade association for dealers in rare coins, currency, and precious metals. It bills itself as the "industry watchdog."

Mr. Hayes said coin dealers do not need bonding "any more than a diamond merchant would have to be bonded."

Although familiar with Noe, he was not among those who wrote to the governor and was unaware of Noe's release. He compared Noe's crime to a bank teller who lifts money from the cash drawer for what he thought was a sure bet on a stock with the full intention of putting the money back later.

"He didn't realize in his world that, no, just putting it back doesn't mean you can take it to start with," Mr. Hayes said. "But what would be respected would be his knowledge of numismatics. That would have value to a company."