The gang's all here

I'm at the first of two scheduled meetings of the Ohio Elections Commission in Columbus this month and it FEELS as busy as October already. An agenda packed with complaints. The lobby is jammed with witnesses subpoenaed in Nathan Noy's "false statements" case against U.S. Rep. Jean Schmidt.

There are at least 65 cases listed ahead of Noy's, but the commission sometimes takes higher-profile or complex cases earlier, and out of order.

As I stepped off the elevator to enter the state commission's 6th floor waiting room at the Wyandotte Building near Broad and High, I had to look twice.

Schmidt's twin wister, Jennifer Black, was seated on the white couch. She introduced herself. I was not alone in briefly mistaking her for the congresswoman from Miami Township. Noy asked Schmidt's attorney, Joseph Braun, if he could question the congresswoman, since he, too, thought Schmidt herself had made it here today from Washington, D.C. She was deposed by telephone Wednesday for about 30 minutes in between congressional votes there.

Noy, who says he ran out of time and money trying to track down people who ran the 1993 Columbus Marathon, said he will seek to question Braun's witnesses today.

Schmidt's chief of staff, Barry Bennett, is here, along with Peter Schmidt, the congresswoman's husband and campaign manager. Also present are a half dozen Columbus Marathon officials and race photographers.

Noy's active complaint claims Schmidt did not run the marathon, or at least not in 3 hours, 19 minutes and 6 seconds. He also alleged her campaign may have fabricated a finish-line photo. See the article previewing today's evidentiary hearing in the newspaper (with a newly surfaced photograph sent overnight from Montana) and on our Local News front online.