Coin-dealer Noe’s ex-wife, friends plead for clemency

hearing, the board’s acting chairman, Trayce Thalheimer, summed up the board’s dilemma.

“What’s better — a pound of flesh or money, make him serve the remaining eight years or get some of the money back?” she asked Lucas County Assistant Prosecutor Kevin Pituch.

The board has twice before unanimously recommended that Gov. John Kasich not commute his 18-year state sentence to time served. Kasich agreed with the board the first time, but on the second pass he requested the board hold a full hearing.

Noe and his supporters made personal pitches in hopes of getting four of the seven members present to vote for clemency. Whatever the board’s recommendation, it is not binding for Mr. Kasich.

The board expects to present its recommendation within 60 days.

In his clemency petition, Noe expressed remorse and said he is not the same man who was sent to prison — both stemming from the coin theft and the two years he served before that in federal prison for laundering campaign contributions to the 2004 re-election campaign of thenPresident George W. Bush.

He was convicted of 29 charges, 25 of them felonies.

A racketeering conviction alone carried a minimum sentence of 10 years, about the amount of time he has served so far on his state sentence.

Nearly 20 relatives and friends of Noe attended on his behalf.

Five testified, including Restivo, now an attorney in Florida. She indicated she may remarry Noe and had even looked into the possibility at one point of doing so in the waiting room of the prison.

She described herself as her ex-husband’s “best friend,” still married to him in the eyes of the Catholic Church.

Steve Ivy, Noe’s long-time friend and former coin-dealer colleague, said Noe still has a good reputation in the collectible coin industry and could successfully return to that line of business to begin the process of repaying $13 million-plus in restitution owed as part of his sentence.

One board member questioned how a convicted felon like Noe could expect to return to a coin-dealing business that depends on trust and whether a bonding company would be willing to insure him.

Also testifying were his current attorney, Barry Wilford; Richard Kerger, his former Toledo attorney; and Garrison Walters, a former executive at the Ohio Board of Regents who wrote a book on the Coingate scandal.

Walters said that, while Noe was guilty of tampering with records and possibly more, he believes he is a political prisoner. Noe was a victim of a “tense” political environment in Toledo, voluminous and unfair press coverage from The Blade, Republicans who were running scared, Democrats who smelled political blood, and a judge’s refusal to move the trial out of Lucas County.

That, he said, led to what he contends was an unwarranted 18-year sentence.