A Delaware County grand jury has indicted 17 former members of the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association, accusing them of stealing or trying to steal $228,560 from the union’s education benefits program over more than 12 years, Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson announced on Thursday, Nov. 12.
Fourteen of the defendants were indicted on charges of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, telecommunications fraud, forgery and theft, according to the attorney general’s office. Two more defendants face charges of theft, forgery and telecommunications fraud, and one defendant faces a theft charge, the attorney general’s office said.
Investigators allege the group fraudulently obtained benefits from the Union Education Trust, the program that gives union members financial help to pursue education, according to the attorney general’s office. The alleged schemes involved falsifying documents to inflate class costs, submitting duplicate invoices for courses that were never taken, and seeking reimbursement for expenses that had already been covered by other sources, including federal student aid, the attorney general’s office said.
The alleged activity ran from September 2013 through December 2025, according to the attorney general’s office. Fourteen of the defendants worked at the Warrensville Developmental Center in Cuyahoga County and are accused of taking part in similar schemes to obtain the benefits, the attorney general’s office said.
The Westerville Police Department led the investigation, and the Ohio Attorney General’s Special Prosecutions Section is prosecuting the cases in Delaware County Common Pleas Court, according to the attorney general’s office. The Ohio Civil Service Employees Association is based in Westerville and represents more than 27,000 state and local government employees across Ohio.
The union has said it uncovered the problem itself. The association learned that several people had “submitted questionable requests for reimbursement” and launched an internal investigation, and it expelled the 17 after learning they had received reimbursement based on false documents, according to a statement from the association reported by The Columbus Dispatch. “For two decades the education assistance trust fund has enabled state employees to improve their career skills and better serve the people of Ohio,” the union said in the statement reported by The Columbus Dispatch.
The Union Education Trust has operated for two decades as one of the association’s core member benefits, helping state employees pay for coursework that advances their careers. Prosecutors allege that trust — in the program and in the paperwork — is exactly what the defendants exploited, submitting inflated and duplicated claims over a span of years before the pattern was caught.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on: the indictments, the charges and the $228,560 total come from the attorney general’s announcement, and the union has confirmed the expulsions in its own statement. Indictments are allegations only, and all 17 defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty. Arraignment dates in Delaware County Common Pleas Court had not been announced in the attorney general’s release, and no pleas have been entered.
The case lands in a busy season for public money in central Ohio. Columbus is weighing Mayor Andrew Ginther’s $1.3 billion city budget — read our coverage of Ginther’s $1.3 billion budget, which boosts fire hiring and zeros out health center funding — and Columbus police leadership is answering questions of its own, as our story on the Columbus police chief’s defense of the response after an assistant chief left a gun in a restroom details.
What happens next is court process: the 17 defendants will be arraigned in Delaware County Common Pleas Court, where the attorney general’s Special Prosecutions Section will present the cases. NewsForce247 will follow the arraignments and any plea or trial dates as the court sets them.
Photo: Christopher L. Riley, CC BY-SA