| ► Columbus Dispatch – 09/11/01 – House-sharing arrangement ends up costing roommates |
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Columbus Dispatch – Sept. 11, 2001 – House-sharing arrangement ends up costing roommates Jon Craig – Statehouse Reporter
Politics makes strange bedfellows and, in this case, roommates.
State and county officials continue to investigate a German Village rental agreement between a former Department of Development employee and a visiting common pleas judge from Sylvania.
Another politico dragged into the mix was Laurel Pressler Dawson, Sen. Mike DeWine's chief of staff. Pressler Dawson, who has owned the rental property since 1991, was among those interviewed in May by investigators with the Ohio Ethics Commission.
The commission forwarded its findings to Columbus and Franklin County prosecutors and to the Supreme Court's grievance and discipline commission.
Pressler Dawson rented an apartment at 509 S. 4th St. to James E. Seney, the former development worker, for $700 a month from July 1997 to May 1999.
Yesterday, Pressler Dawson said there was nothing unusual about her part of the agreement.
"He (Seney) lived across the street in a rental property. That's how I knew him. He was a neighbor. My house was going up for rent. He liked it. A lot of those (politically connected) people live in German Village.
Seney, in turn, split the rent with visiting Common Pleas Judge Stephen A. Yarbrough of Sylvania.
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