OH AG Mike DeWine Targets Chesapeake for Fraud

Ohio’s attorney general, Mike DeWine, has Chesapeake Energy in his crosshairs. He’s investigating them for “fraud” because their stock price went down. Good luck with that.

Here’s what the Columbus Dispatch is reporting:

Attorney General Mike DeWine is reviewing allegations of fraud by Chesapeake Energy that may have led to investment losses for Ohio pension funds.

He said this in a letter to Ohio Citizen Action, an environmental advocacy group that wrote to DeWine earlier this month raising concerns about various aspects of Chesapeake’s conduct.

“My office is reviewing the retirement system trading data in order to calculate possible losses attributable to the alleged fraud,” he said in the letter. “Please be assured that we will monitor the situation and take appropriate action if it appears that Ohio resources have been lost due to fraudulent activity.”

A Chesapeake spokesman had no immediate comment.

For the record, Ohio Citizen Action is a strongly anti-drilling organization—an organization DeWine seems to want to curry favor with. A copy of his full letter to OCA is embedded below.

*Columbus (OH) Dispatch (Jun 19, 2012) – Ohio AG probing Chesapeake Energy’s conduct