COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio Inspector General Tom Charles Friday said he expects more criminal charges to come in the long-running investigation of the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation.

In 2006, the investigation led to the conviction of former Toledo coin dealer and Republican fundraiser Tom Noe. Noe managed an investment fund for the state but was convicted of stealing from the fund.

Charles, a Northeast Ohio native, spent 31 years in the Ohio Highway Patrol before being appointed inspector general eight years ago. He was recently reappointed by Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland.

Below is an interview with WHIOTV.com reporter Jim Otte.

Jim Otte - Your biggest case to date has been the Coingate investigation. Tom Noe was convicted and now is in prison. Is the case completed?

Tom Charles - The case is not completed. We will have an annual report that will come out in a week or week and a half. We will have an update for people on the Noe case. But we are still working with the federal grand jury and we are still reviewing records on overrides done at the Bureau of Workers Compensation on premiums. We have a little work to do and eventually will make the records public. It will take a while and may have some people charged in two or three weeks.

Jim Otte - How long did it take you to discover what was really happening in the coin case?

Tom Charles - I think when you are in the business of investigating, you become suspicious on many occasions. After reviewing a few records early on, we knew we had issues to deal with. We had wrongdoing. We did not know how much or where it was going to lead. Once we formed the task force, we decided to go with every allegation, no matter where it led and that is why we are still reviewing data.

Jim Otte - The coin case raised the profile of your office. What are your hopes that this will be a deterrent to future efforts by anyone to steal from the state of Ohio?

Tom Charles - I think is it a landmark case. I am not sure there has ever been a task force of this size put together with all of the different jurisdictions that are necessary. What I learned from it is that you do need help. Some of the investigations are rather complex and require certain expertise and for a small office like ours, we could not have done it without the assistance of other agencies, particularly the State Highway Patrol. We think it will be a deterrent and if not, we are going to clean up a lot that needed to be cleaned up. The practices of wrongdoing that were ongoing, just that alone is a big step forward. The message many people who see this will be, we do not want this to happen to us.

-To report government waste, fraud or abuse, call the Wastebusters Hotline at 937-259-2289. Or write to Jim Otte at jim.otte@whiotv.com.