Ex-politician denies guilt to crimes

In 2009, Mike Fox, the longest-serving state lawmaker in Butler County history, was charged with federal charges accusing him of abusing his political authority, defrauding the public out of hundreds of thousands of dollars and financially benefiting from county contracts from 2000-08.

Earlier this year, he was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to complicity to commit mail and wire fraud and filing a false tax return. To this day, Fox said he believes he did nothing wrong.

According to a statement of facts filed with Fox’s plea agreement, he accepted approximately $460,000 in 2002 when he was a commissioner in what the government deems a bribe or kickback from Robert Schuler. At the time, a company owned by Schuler, NORMAP, held a multi-million-dollar contract with Butler County to install a fiber optic communications network throughout the county.

Fox failed to disclose the $460,000 he received from Schuler in an attempt to hide the improper financial relationship, federal authorities said.

“His corruption threatened the integrity of state and local governments and, thereby, the trust of those whom are governed,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Barry said in court records.

The Oxford resident, who was born and grew up in Hamilton, was driven to the Federal Medical Center in Lexington, Ky., on Friday afternoon to serve a four-year federal prison tern. The 63-year-old spent his last weeks of freedom rehabbing a knee after undergoing surgery before beginning his time behind bars and pursuing his passion of writing and recording music.

He also will miss his 35th wedding anniversary to wife MaryAnn in December.

“But when you are dealt a bad hand, you play it as well as you can,” Fox said. “Life is not fair or just at times, but the one foundation in life that has carried me though is my faith and it will now.

The charges Fox admitted to came to light following an FBI investigation into whether the Dynus Corp. took out millions of dollars in loans in the county’s name without its approval for the operation of a fiber-optics system.

The investigation into the company led to the convictions of former Dynus executives, former county Auditor Kay Rogers and eventually Fox.

Fox admitted guilt to the charges last year, but did not plead to any corruption charges — specifically accepting bribes and kickbacks — originally pursued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

“I do not believe I broke the law,” Fox said. “If I did, I did not do it knowingly.”

Commissioner Charles “Chuck” Furmon made the call in 2005 to the FBI and asked the agency to look into whether Dynus took out a multimillion-dollar loan in the county’s name without approval.

That investigation led to Rogers pleading to falsifying documents and going to federal prison. It also turned the spotlight on Fox.

Facing 20 years, Fox said he took the plea deal. He was offered a shorter sentence earlier in the case, but he said he refused because he would have had to admit to corruption charges.

“I would have spent the rest of my life in prison before I admitted to something that wasn’t true,” he said. “I want people to know charges against me were not true and I will bite the bullet and do what I have to do to get to the next phase in my life.”