THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Apparently Ohio had diversified investments in Tom Noe's fund and didn't even know it. Still doesn't since Tom won't let Ohios people near the assets for an audit.

Auditors were stunned Wednesday to discover that money from the state's $55.4 million rare-coin investment has been spent on "an enormous inventory" of collectibles, such as autographs or other valuable papers.

The Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation, which engineered the investment, also discovered a note re cording a $530,000 loan to an unknown person that used col lectibles as collateral.

For the third straight day, bureau auditors were prevented from examining the state's largest cache of rare coins in Maumee, being held by Tom Noe, a major Republican fund-raiser who is the subject of investigations by six state and federal agencies over allegations of influence peddling and campaign contributions.

The latest developments raise new questions about the safety of Ohio's multimillion-dollar investment in what the bureau termed "tens of thousands of coins" as well as Noe's recordkeeping.

Investigators already are questioning a loan from the bureau's Capital Coin funds to a Toledo real estate business, after learning that an auditor could find no documents to prove the loans were sufficiently covered by the value of the real estate held as collateral.

Noe's attorney, William Wilkinson, said the state was violating a court-sanctioned agreement reached Tuesday to first inspect the non-coin collectibles purchased by the two coin funds managed by Noe. Then state auditors would get access to the coins, he said.

"The investments included non-coin collectibles, things like valuable letters and papers," Wilkinson said. "These are assets of the coin funds. There is an enormous inventory of non-coin collectibles." Wilkinson was unable to provide details.

Republicans are trustworthy stewards of public money.