But local attorney Brad Kraemer filed a motion Monday in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati requesting Judge Sandra Beckwith allow Rogers to be released, stating, “She is tremendously remorseful for her offenses and would like the opportunity to return to being a productive member of society.”
Awaiting Rogers if she is released to home confinement, according to Kraemer, is a job with a Fairfield CPA company with a salary of $50,000.
Steve Potter, CPA, describes Rogers’ duties at his business in a letter included with the motion as “checking approximately 900 individual tax returns, working on client accounting, setting up accounting systems for clients and client development.”
“Ms. Rogers had begun to work for me in the summer of 2011 and I would prefer to offer this position to her, whose work I already know, than to offer it to someo0ne whom I do not know,” Potter wrote in the letter.
Kraemer said during Rogers time in prison, she has worked as part of the cleaning crew for a building down the road from the camp and has co-chaired community relations projects as well as other events as requested.
“The defendant has six children and has suffered tremendously for her mistakes and has already suffered tremendous losses,” Kraemer said in the motion.
A hearing date had not been set Monday in federal court.
Before beginning her prison stint in Lexington, Ky., Rogers was both angry and tearful in an interview with the JournalNews about leaving her home and children.
Because she cooperated with the federal investigation and remained a productive citizen working as an accountant for four years while waiting to learn her fate, Rogers said she believed her sentence was harsh. But she also knew her actions were wrong.
“I accepted responsibility. I violated the public trust, I get that,” Rogers said last year.
Dynus Corp. was contracted by Butler County early last decade to operate the county’s fiber-optics system, which was built to help spur economic development. Rogers was at the core of the scandal, falsifying documents that secured loans for Dynus while in the name of the county.
Dynus took out two loans from National City Bank totaling approximately $6.4 million. Rogers signed a resolution on Dec. 31, 2004, at her home — on behalf of the county, but without the commissioners’ knowledge — saying the county would borrow $4 million from National City. Dynus used the loan money to borrow approximately $4 million from Fifth Third Bank.
Unlike others convicted, Rogers said she didn’t profit from her part in the Dynus deal.
The scheme began to unravel when the county received an invoice from National City for the debt in late August 2005.
Butler County Commissioner Chuck Furmon and National City officials called the FBI to investigate on Sept. 6, 2005.
Furmon declined comment Monday about the request for Rogers’ release.
Rogers eventually pleaded guilty in December 2007 and resigned as county auditor in March 2008. Her sentencing was delayed for four years due to her cooperation with the FBI. Rogers wore a wire to about 100 face-to-face interviews with subjects of investigations.
According to her attorneys, Rogers provided information in investigations that included former Dynus executives Orlando Carter and Jim Smith, former Dynus employee Karin Verbruggen, West Chester Twp. Trustee George Lang, former county GOP Finance Director Joe Ruscigno and former politician and Butler County Children’s Services Director Michael Fox.
Fox is now also serving a four-year federal prison sentence also in Lexington, Ky. Fox was not involved in the Dynus investigation, but Fox pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud and filing a false tax return for his connection in NORMAP — the company that built the county’s fiber optics system.
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