Ohio Coin Dealer Gets 18 Years

Thomas Noe, the rare coin entrepreneur convicted of stealing as much as $13.7 million from the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation, was sentenced to 18 years in prison today and was ordered to pay back the money that went missing plus legal fees. Noe's sentencing would seem to close the books on the "Coingate" scandal, which centered around the agency's bizarre and ill-fated $50 million investment in rare coins—and which was at least partially responsible for Democratic wins in the Ohio Senate and Governor races earlier this month.

However, as the Toledo Blade pointed out yesterday, questions remain. Most importantly, how and why did the politically active Noe, who gave liberally to state Republican officials, get the state government to hand over $50 million dollars to his coin company?

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Workers' Compensation, in an effort to make amends for the Noe investment—as well as for a blown hedge fund bet that cost the state $215 million—has asked a judge for permission to publish hitherto private information on the venture capital and private equity firms in which it invests. The move, as Inc. reports in this month's issue, is causing VCs to become more secretive about their investments.

For the Ohioans out there, what's your take on Coingate? And, for the rest of the country, what should the newly elected Congress do to make sure government contracts are fairly awarded and government funds wisely invested?

Senior contributing writer Max Chafkin has profiled companies such as Yelp, Zappos, Twitter, Threadless, and Tesla for the magazine. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. @chafkin