City auditor accuses GOP of digging up dirt

Athens City Auditor Kathy Hecht said Saturday she believes a public-records request, which uncovered the fact that a city office under her authority hired her son in 2005, was an attempt by Republicans to dig up damaging material against her in case she ran against Athens County Auditor Jill Thompson in November.

"œOh, absolutely," she said. Hecht, a Democrat, added that the records request contributed to her decision to not challenge incumbent Republican Thompson in the county auditor's race.

"Yes, it did," Hecht confirmed "“ though she stressed that she does not believe she broke any ethics regulations in having her son on the payroll of an office that's under hers.

The Ohio University student whose records request uncovered the hiring of Paul Hecht said Sunday, however, that when he made the request, he was not working on behalf of Thompson or anyone connected to her campaign.

"No, I was not," said Jesse Hathaway, a member of the OU College Republicans whose blog, "Athens Runaway," focuses most of its energy on attacking Democrat officials at the state and local level. "This was my idea."

Hathaway said he discovered the hiring of Paul Hecht during an investigation of finances in the city auditor's office, which was done on his own initiative.

Hathaway said he had been hearing rumors about increases in spending in the city auditor's office after Hecht's election in November 2003. "I kind of went, 'Well, that sounds like it would be an interesting project, to see if those rumors are true,'" he recalled.

While looking over records from the auditor's office including a listing of all employee salaries, Hathaway said, "I came across the name of Paul Hecht," the auditor's son, on the payroll.

Hathaway then sent this information anonymously to Dave Yost, the Delaware County prosecutor who had been hired earlier by the county to investigate suspected campaign-finance violations by county Democratic Party chair Susan Gwinn.

After a bench trial in December, Gwinn was found guilty of two misdemeanor charges of falsifying campaign-finance reports. She has asked the judge in the case to set aside that verdict, however.

Yost had no mandate to investigate Hecht, and in a letter to the city auditor that Hecht made available to local media Friday, he informed her that he has referred the information to the Ohio Ethics Commission, and has no plans to pursue the issue further.

In the letter, dated Jan. 8, Yost stated that if Hecht actually hired her son, this "would appear to violate Ohio's nepotism law as well as the conflict of interest statute."

Yost wrote that he believes the information was sent to him because of his service on the Gwinn case.

"Although my appointment does not limit my jurisdiction to that case," he added, "I am reluctant to take up another, unrelated matter." Therefore, he said, he has done no investigation and has simply turned the matter over to the OEC.

Hecht, apparently after getting media inquiries about the matter, opted to release Yost's letter and her own statement about it to reporters Friday.

In her statement, she acknowledged that her son, who had worked for the city's Parks and Recreation Department for years before her election, was hired by the city income tax administrator to fill a temporary, part-time position shortly after Hecht's election.

"My son was transferred through the normal city process to fill this temporary, part-time need," Hecht wrote, in a job which she said paid minimum wage, and mainly involved moving files and filing cabinets. (Records supplied by Hathaway indicate Paul Hecht was hired at $6.50 an hour in August 2005.)

"He continued working intermittently for both the recreation and income tax departments through March of 2007," Hecht's statement continued. "It never occurred to me that this four-year-old event was an issue until my office received a myriad of public records requests shortly after I expressed an interest in running for Athens County auditor."

Hecht said Saturday that before hearing from Yost, she had already independently contacted the OEC to inquire about whether she had done anything wrong. "I fully anticipate this matter will conclude positively," she wrote in her prepared statement.

Hecht claimed Saturday that the hiring of her son was known to city Personnel Director Beverly Henderson, who raised no objection at the time. She also noted that she was not her son's direct supervisor; the income tax administrator was.

Asked why he sent the information to Yost anonymously, Hathaway said Sunday that he wanted to stay out of the media spotlight.

"Obviously, it raises questions "“ 'Oh, this is a political thing,'" the student said. "But I already knew of (Yost's) reputation for handling this sort of thing in other counties. (I thought), 'He'll be able to look at it, and do the right thing with it...' I didn't want to be a celebrity. I just wanted this kind of thing to be looked into, and if it turns out there's nothing shady going on, then I'm very happy."

Thompson could not be reached for comment. Pete Couladis, chair of the Athens County Republican Party, said he was not aware of Hathaway's records requests having any connection to Thompson's campaign or the county GOP.