The Athens County prosecutor hotly denied yesterday that he railroaded the county's top democrat with felony money-laundering charges.
It boggles my imagination as to how I've got that much power
said C. David Warren, county prosecutor. I mean if I've got that much power then maybe I'm also responsible for global warming the swine flu and Ohio State's loss to USC.
A grand jury indicted party chairwoman Susan Gwinn, 55, last Thursday for felony money laundering. The indictment charges Gwinn with illegally funneling more than $27,000 to her 2008 campaign for county prosecutor against Warren, the incumbent democrat.
Gwinn challenged the grand jury indictment Monday night at a party meeting, calling it a politically motivated vendetta.
She will be arraigned at 1 p.m. Friday before a visiting judge.
At the meeting, Gwinn accused Warren of leading a political crusade against her.
Warren said he received a tip from someone inside Gwinn's campaign about fiscal wrongdoing and asked for a special prosecutor to avoid a conflict of interest. The court appointed Delaware County Prosecutor Dave Yost, a republican running for Ohio Attorney General, to handle the case.
Warren's involvement in the investigation will be determined as the case moves forward, Gwinn said.
He is the one who made the request for the special prosecutor. He is the one that asked for this particular prosecutor
she said. I have my suspicions about his involvement
but that's one of the issues we're going to be litigating.
It is absurd to think that Warren received a tip from someone inside her campaign, Gwinn said. She added that Warren used his position to get finance records for the investigation before requesting that Yost take on the case.
Yost did not return phone calls for comment yesterday.
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Frank Thomas
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Complied by Gail Burkhardt
