The Attorney General is attempting to freeze the ECOT man’s assets.
William Lager, the ECOT man, collected hundreds of millions in public school funds for students not being served. Lager brokered a deal with the Ohio Department of Education in 2001 that allowed him to be paid for whatever number of students he chose to report. After about 15 years of the self, unaudited reporting by Lager, the Ohio Department of Education audited the reported number of students and found that in one year alone, the Lager fraud exceeded $60 million. When the department started collecting back some of the illegal payments, ECOT went out of business.
The state is attempting to recoup over $100 million from Lager with very little success or prospect of ever collecting any amount. One of the latest legal attempts is to freeze Lager’s assets. According to a recent Gongwer report, a dispute has arisen over a $5.8 million Key West Florida property that Lager allegedly gave to one of his attorneys. As this entire case is being played out, it becomes increasingly evident that the state will not collect a dime of the hundreds of millions Lager stole from Ohio taxpayers that would have otherwise gone to Ohio public school students.
The root problem is that Ohio public officials failed to regulate charter schools, and thus allowed rampant fraud and corruption to fester in the charter industry.
Lager was bankrupt when he got into the charter school industry. He paid politicians millions in campaign contributions, and thus state officials turned a blind eye to Lager’s theft of tax money. Lager became rich by bribing politicians. The politicians are as guilty as Lager!
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VOUCHERS HURT OHIO
