Coingate: More Watergate Style Burglaries

Thieves targeted the Ohio Democratic Party Headquarters this week, stealing a computer and a Blackberry belonging to party chairman Denny White. Valuable computers, flat panel monitors and stereo equipment were left untouched. The items stolen were the party chairman’s Dell computer valued at $800, a flat-screen monitor valued at $250, and a $250 BlackBerry. Democrats also say the break-in is eerily similar to a burglary at the Lucas County Democratic Party Headquarters last fall, in which three computers were stolen. Sandy Isenberg, who was chairman of the Lucas County Democratic Party at the time of the break-in, said yesterday the latest burglary “sounds more and more like dirty tricks. It’s no different than our break-in, through a window, [they] took three very important computers, and left everything else,” she said. “Come on - How strange is that? I find it extremely peculiar and suspicious.”

Ohio Democratic Party was working on information that links Republican office-holders with the state’s failed $50 million rare-coin investment with Tom Noe. It is not known if the stolen computer has the only copy of this information. Lawyers for Mr. Noe, a Republican fund-raiser, have told authorities that about $13 million in assets are missing from the coin fund.
Sandy Isenberg said, “I lived through the Nixon era and I’m living through this convoluted mess right now, and it would seem to me that the Republicans will stop at nothing to further their cause. That’s unfortunate because there are many Republicans out there who would and do find this situation that the state of Ohio is in abhorrent of their beliefs and values.”