Ted Strickland is lying about John Reardon, and broke the law when he appointed him

A few days ago, we told you about the evolving scandal with a Democratic fundraiser, and how it has uncovered an allegation made against former Governor Ted Strickland. John B. Reardon was the Mahoning County Treasurer in 2006 and decided to run for Auditor of State. He eventually dropped out of the race.

But as part of an FBI investigation, he claims that he only dropped out of the race because Ted Strickland promised him a job in his administration. From the Columbus dispatch:

Reardon said Strickland, who at the time was a candidate for governor, called him and said, according to the FBI report, “John, I’ve to be very careful in how I say this to you, when I’m elected, the administration is going to need good people in a lot of top jobs. Good people with abilities such as yourself and we are going to have a lot of jobs to fill and we are going to fill them with people with qualifications and abilities like yours.”

Of course, as we told you before, Strickland completely denies that he implied any job offer in return for dropping out. Ted went on to claim that such a deal was "against his values", and then he claims that Reardon got the job because he was qualified.

Strickland said he didn’t want his administration to be “Columbus-centric,” and said Reardon was from Youngstown and qualified for the job he ultimately landed.

Here's the problem for Ted. Reardon wasn't qualified to be the Superintendent of the Division of Financial Institutions. Who says he wasn't qualified? Ohio state law, that's who.


Ohio Revised Code 1181.01 states that "The superintendent shall have at least five years of experience in the financial services industry or in the examination or regulation of financial institutions."

From everything we can find out, Reardon never worked in the banking industry at all. Here is the press release that Strickland put out when they appointed him. Don't you think that if Reardon had worked in the financial services industry, as required by law, he would have listed those qualifications?

Ted Strickland went to great lengths to hire John Reardon, since he violated state law to do so. The guy clearly wasn't qualified. The only logical conclusion is that he owed Reardon. This was clearly a political move.

Even worse, Reardon ended up resigning in disgrace in 2010 and being charged with multiple charges of corruption.

Reardon is charged with engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, perjury, conspiracy, conflict of interest and filing a false financial disclosure statement with the Ohio Ethics Commission.

So in summation, Ted Strickland says he appointed John Reardon because he was qualified, and NOT because he had worked out a quid pro quo deal with him to drop out of the auditor's race. But we now know that Strickland appointed a crooked, unqualified person to the position, and that he broke the law to do it.

If he lied about the man's qualifications for the job, he's obviously lying about giving him a job in return for political favors being "against his values". You're busted, Ted.

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