Former U.S. attorney Steve Dettelbach, who’s running for Ohio attorney general, is accusing his likely Republican opponent of mishandling a whistleblower’s complaint about the state’s largest online charter school.
In a call with reporters, Dettelbach implied Auditor Dave Yost is a bookkeeper who doesn’t understand or appreciate what a delay in turning evidence of fraud over to prosecutors can mean.
“It is a massive fraud case and it should immediately have been taken out of the audit queue and sent over to criminal investigators who can handle it. And I am worried that evidence, witnesses and money has dissipated and disappeared in this time.”
The whistleblower – who worked for the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow -- told the Associated Press he had notified Yost last year that the school had used software to report phony attendance numbers. Yost’s office responded that Dettelbach doesn’t know the important facts of this case and is rushing to judgment.
The school closed earlier this year.
