Reply #11: Ethics inquiry in Blackwell's office [View All]

http://www.cleveland.com/weblogs/openers/

Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell's chief of staff is under review by the Ohio Ethics Commission after she failed to disclose income and gifts from the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, a charter school that has been plagued by controversy.

While on Blackwell's payroll, Sherri Dembinski also has served as an ECOT board member and vice president of a foundation related to ECOT. Beginning in 2000, she disclosed her relationship with ECOT but her 2005 financial disclosure statement did not include $5,000 she received from the school in 2004. She has called the omission an "oversight" and filed an amended report.

Under the commission's rules, efforts to amend an ethics statement trigger an automatic inquiry. The agency will decide whether it believes the omission was inadvertent - or done knowingly, just as it did when Gov. Bob Taft failed to disclose receipt of golf games and other gifts.

Blackwell spokesman James Lee said he is confident the commission will conclude that Dembinski made an honest mistake...

--Sandy Theis