By M.R. Kropko
The Associated Press

CLEVELAND - Two former employees of state Treasurer Joseph T. Deters were charged today in a scheme to funnel donations to his campaign and help donors get in contact with people who could get them state business.

Although a grand jury has been investigating the case since January, Special Prosecutor Thomas J. Sammon filed the charges as an information, in which prosecutors file an allegation directly instead of seeking a grand jury indictment.

The Cuyahoga County grand jury started investigating after imprisoned ex-stock broker Frank Gruttadauria said he bribed an official connected to the treasurer's office to get state investment business.

Deters' former chief of staff, Matthew Borges, was charged with one count of improper use of public office. The information filed at Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court accuses Borges of giving "certain brokers" who had made contributions to Deters' re-election campaign a preferential position with the director of investments at the treasurer's office.

Eric Sagun, a former Deters fund-raiser, was charged with one count of election law violations. The information accuses him of soliciting a $50,000 donation from Gruttadauria in December 2001 for the Hamilton County Republican Party when the pair intended the money be for Deters' re-election campaign.

At an arraignment later today, Borges and Sagun pleaded innocent to the charges. The men and their attorneys left the courtroom without comment.

Last week, Sammon said Deters was not part of the grand jury investigation. Deters testified before the grand jury in June but declined to disclose what he had been asked and said he had done nothing wrong.

Messages seeking comment were left today for Deters and Sammon.

Gruttadauria, serving an unrelated seven-year sentence for bilking clients out of $125 million, pleaded guilty in March to state charges and agreed to cooperate with the grand jury. Prosecutors refuse to name the official that Gruttadauria has said he bribed.

Gruttadauria has said the $50,000 check he directed to the Hamilton County Republican Party was a disguised contribution to Deters and he illegally reimbursed others $7,000 for donating to Deters.

Investment firm SG Cowen handled no state business before Gruttadauria started there in 1999. Over the next two years, that firm and the broker's next employer, Lehman Brothers, together handled more than $5.9 billion in trades for the state.

Deters, a Cincinnati Republican, is a candidate for Ohio attorney general in 2006. Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason, a Democrat who has been mentioned as a possible attorney general candidate, turned the grand jury probe over to special prosecutor Sammon in February.