Long-time state watchdog Tom Charles dies at 81

Thomas P. Charles, who served as state inspector general and director of the Ohio Department of Public Safety, died Tuesday. He was 81.

Charles worked nearly half a century in state government, spending 31 years with the highway patrol, serving as legislative inspector general and then state inspector general and finishing his public service career as public safety director.

During his tenure as state inspector general, Charles took on a governor's powerful chief of staff, another governor's safety director, a major campaign supporter of a third governor, and a sitting attorney general - among others.

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"He cleaned up a lot of state agencies," said Joe Montgomery, who worked with Charles at the patrol, inspector general's office and public safety department. "During Tom's tenure as inspector general, there wasn't a month that went by without a newspaper article about an IG case."

Charles and his team played a key part in investigating the wide ranging "Coingate" scandal in 2005, which involved ethics violations, political connections and investment losses.

Montgomery said Charles empowered his employees to pursue wrongdoing, acquired resources needed for complex cases and used his wide network of connections to get work done. "Having worked directly for him for eight or nine years, I can tell you that every decision was based on the right thing to do. No cutting corners. No politics."

Former investigative journalist Ted Wendling, who left The Plain Dealer to join Charles' staff in the inspector general's office, praised Charles for refusing to back down in the face of political pressure from the Strickland administration. Charles concluded that Gov. Ted Strickland's public safety director called off a planned sting operation at the governor's mansion to intercept contraband being dropped off for prisoners working at the residence.

"To his credit, he never backed down. His instructions were always to follow the investigation, wherever it led. I admired that," Wendling said.

Charles, a native of Hubbard near Youngstown, served four governors. He was appointed inspector general by Republican Gov. George V. Voinovich in September 1998 and was reappointed by both Republican Gov. Bob Taft and Strickland, a Democrat. The inspector general, a post created in 1988, has broad authority to investigate wrongdoing and mismanagement in state government.

Republican Gov. John Kasich named Charles the state public safety director.

After Charles retired in 2013, he worked under contract at JobsOhio, the non-profit economic development agency created by the Kasich administration.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Former Ohio watchdog Tom Charles dies