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Fox fights for his legacy

Michael A. Fox, in the wheelchair being pushed by his wife Mary Anne Fox, leaves the Potter Stewart U.S. Courthouse in downtown Cincinnati with his attorneys Aaron Herzig and Ralph Kohnen, standing behind Herzig, after a hearing on Thursday, Oct. 29. He and Robert C. Schuler have been charged with conspiracy

Samantha Grier/Staff photographer Michael A. Fox, in the wheelchair being pushed by his wife Mary Anne Fox, leaves the Potter Stewart U.S. Courthouse in downtown Cincinnati with his attorneys Aaron Herzig and Ralph Kohnen, standing behind Herzig, after a hearing on Thursday, Oct. 29. He and Robert C. Schuler have been charged with conspiracy "to improperly benefit from Butler County contracts involving a (fiber optics) company doing business with the county, " according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Staff photo by Samantha Grier.

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By Josh Sweigart, Staff Writer 1:18 AM Sunday, November 1, 2009

HAMILTON — Soft-spoken and ambling with a cane, Michael A. Fox is a less imposing figure these days.

He spends his hours tinkering with a children’s book he’s authoring, sitting in the Fairfield Twp. home he is in the process of losing to foreclosure and where his personal belongings are packed in boxes.

Not long ago, “Megaphone Mike Fox” was considered one of the most powerful men in Butler County.

Today, he fights for this legacy, which is about all he says he has left after medical ailments and legal bills have ruined his health and finances.

In an eight-count indictment unsealed Thursday, Oct. 29, Fox is charged in federal court with mail fraud and tax charges that amount to “public corruption,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

If convicted, the 60-year-old could spend the rest of his life in prison.

Fox — former county commissioner, state lawmaker and Children Services director — is alleged to have solicited and received money from several companies doing business with the county when he sat on the commission.

This includes more than $460,000 allegedly funneled to Fox by Robert C. Schuler, who Fox brought in to take over a fiber optics project worth roughly $1.8 million. Schuler faces similar charges.

Fox has said in statements that he won’t comment on the government’s allegations. But he defended himself and his long service in Butler County in a recent interview with the JournalNews and the Middletown Journal.

HAMILTON — For years now, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has combed through multiple aspects of Michael A. Fox’s life. His mortgage paperwork. His bank statements. His voting record.

Before the investigation culminated in an eight-count indictment unsealed Thursday, Oct. 29, — including charges he solicited money from companies doing business with Butler County when he was commissioner — Fox talked about the stress the investigation put him underhe had experienced.

“They’ve already broken me financially. They have put untold pain and hurt on my family and my wife; the techniques they’ve used, they are just unbelievable,” said the former commissioner, state lawmaker and children services director.

Fox said the FBI tricked his daughter into meeting with agents at Miami University, and he said they showed up at his wife’s work, threatening to indict her. In the process, authorities have dangled over his head a way to make it end, he said : Plead guilty.

“It’s an investigation where the conclusion was made at the beginning,” he said. “There’s a principle here, and that is, for me, I won’t repudiate who I am, what I’ve been and what I’ve done in order to help them keep their dockets clean.

“I had hoped to have a retirement where I could write, where I could continue to do things in a different way, and I have the entire resources of the federal government devoted to making sure they destroy me and my legacy,” he said.

“There is nobody that would withstand the level of scrutiny and hundreds of thousands of dollars in resources they spent reviewing every aspect of my life into the ’90s, in an attempt to ‘find the dirt.’”

Fox: Investigation was political

Why would they do all this?

“I had a failed liberal Democratic congressional candidate applying for a promotion, having an opportunity to drive a stake in the Republican party of Butler County; and I had an FBI agent that bought hook, line and sinker a story that Butler County was corrupt, and the story came to him from people who were trying to save themselves,” Fox said.

That congressional candidate is Richard Chema, a candidate in 2006 for Ohio’s 3rd U.S. Congressional District, is the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted cases against former Butler County Auditor Kay Rogers, former county GOP finance chairman Joe Ruscigno and the executives from the fiber optics firm Dynus Corp.

Chema was also a candidate in 2006 for Ohio’s 3rd U.S. Congressional District. A Democrat, Chema tried to unseat Republican Mike Turner and failed, getting just over 44 percent of the vote.

The Dynus investigation is what brought the FBI’s attention in the first placescrutiny to the county. The company took out millions of dollars in loans in the county’s name without county approval. It ended with Eventually, Rogers and two Dynus executives pleaded guilty — and the former company owner was found guilty — of bank fraud. Their cases revealed that the fiber optics company took out millions of dollars in loans in the county’s name without county approval.

FBI agent Kevin Gormley led the Dynus investigations.

“When that FBI agent asked me to become a Kay and wear the wires and do all the (things) to say or induce people to say they did something illegal, I refused,” Fox said.

U.S. Attorney’s Office Spokesman Fred Alverson said the investigation — which began under a Republican administration — was apolitical.

“Prosecutorial decisions are based on facts and evidence gathered by federal, state and local law enforcement agents, and that’s the only thing on which they’re based,” Alverson said.

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