COLUMBUS, Ohio - One of Gov. Ted Strickland's top cabinet officials lied under oath about a decision to scrub a criminal investigation at the governor's mansion to save Strickland from political embarrassment, according to a state report released Thursday.

Just as damning for the Democratic governor, an honors work program for inmates that Strickland used at his home "veered off-course," with prisoners smuggling tobacco and small weapons like razor blades and utility knives from the governor's mansion into prison, according to the report from the Ohio Inspector General's office.

Inspector General Tom Charles launched his probe in January after State Highway Patrol officials complained that Department of Public Safety Director Cathy Collins-Taylor had unnecessarily canceled a police sting at the governor's residence. The sting was planned after a prison official intercepted a letter from an inmate to his wife, asking her to drop off a "six pack" behind the mansion.

Patrol officials have said they thought they were investigating a drug deal, though they cannot be sure. The administration has said the "six pack" meant tobacco.

Collins-Taylor, a civilian who oversees the patrol, contended the sting jeopardized the governor's safety. But patrol officers accused her of obstructing a police investigation just to save her boss, Strickland, who is up for re-election this year and had appointed Collins-Taylor to her job months earlier.

"During sworn interviews with our office, Collins-Taylor did not tell the truth about her decision to shut down the operation, nor was she truthful about the timing of her decision," the 48-page report concludes.

The report also accuses patrol Lt. Joseph Mannion, Strickland's top personal security officer, of lying under oath and says Patrol Superintendent Col. David Dicken made unsubstantiated claims during the inspector general's probe. And, the report said, public safety officials "went to extraordinary lengths" to obstruct attempts by the inspector general to obtain records.

"Evidence. . . along with the interviews we conducted, showed that Collins-Taylor, Mannion, Dicken and others made unsupported accusations," the report states. The report, however, found no evidence that Strickland's chief legal counsel Kent Markus and chief of staff John Haseley interfered.

The explosive report instantly became a political treasure trove for Republicans looking for dirt to unseat Strickland in November and a political nightmare for the governor's campaign team, which spun into a tizzy on Thursday trying to contain the fallout.

Strickland issued a statement saying he stood by Collins-Taylor, Mannion and Dicken and added that he is still supportive of the inmate program, which has received some stepped-up security measures.

"I believe that the decisions in this case were made by people acting in good faith. If decisions were made in order to protect me from some kind of embarrassment, that was unnecessary," Strickland said.

Collins-Taylor was not available for comment. She has hired well-known private Columbus attorney Charles "Rocky" Saxbe to represent her. Saxbe was not available for comment, but The Plain Dealer obtained a letter dated April 9 that Saxbe wrote to assistant inspector general Craig Mayton.

In the seven-page letter, Saxbe explained why the planned Jan. 10 sting was sloppy police work, noting that patrol investigators still have no idea what they were investigating and cannot know about the possible safety risks to officers and the governor. For those reasons, he concludes Collins-Taylor was right to cancel the sting.

"If the highway patrol formulates a plan that creates or involves unknown or unnecessary risks to high profile targets and individuals, the plan must be well conceived," Saxbe wrote.

"If that does not occur, and it did not here," Saxbe wrote, "it is the duty of its leadership to investigate, challenge and, if appropriate, modify the operation."

Separately, Democrats have quietly questioned whether Inspector General Charles could have overseen a fair investigation on this matter.

Charles is a former highway patrol trooper. His wife is a patrol captain and interviewed last fall for the superintendent job that ultimately went to Dicken. And it's no secret that patrol leaders have had problems answering to Collins-Taylor and before her, Director Henry Guzman.

Several high-profile inspector general reports over the past year pitting the patrol against public safety have come down squarely on the side of the patrol. Collins-Taylor in January responded to an earlier Charles investigation with a scathing letter questioning the integrity of that probe.

But earlier this month in an interview with The Plain Dealer, Strickland noted that he re-appointed Charles in 2007, carrying him over from the previous Republican administration. He said Charles could be impartial.

Meanwhile, Republicans on Thursday said the inspector general's report validated their concerns.

In February, Ohio Senate President Bill Harris, an Ashland Republican, authorized Sen. Tim Grendell, chair of the Senate's judiciary committee, to use subpoena power to investigate the incident. It was the first time since 1986 the senate had exercised such power.

"Despite the administration's charge that the Senate has been political in asking legitimate questions surrounding this case, it appears that where we saw smoke, there was indeed a fire," Harris said in a statement.

Grendell, a Chester Township Republican, said he will continue his hearings and is likely to soon subpoena Collins-Taylor, Dicken, Markus and others.

"What this report does is continue to confirm that politics is taking concern over public safety," Grendell said.

The report, however, did not reach two key conclusions Republicans had hoped for: that drugs were at the center of that planned January sting and that Markus made the call to stop the investigation.

Grendell said both those items remain part of his focus.

Strickland is being challenged in November by former Republican Congressman John Kasich. A Kasich spokesman on Thursday questioned why the governor, who prides himself on ethics, would publicly stand by Collins-Taylor who now is accused of lying under oath.

Plain Dealer Reporter Joe Guillen contributed to this report.

The inspector general found:

Political rather than safety concerns were behind Public Safety Director Cathy Collins-Taylor's decision to cancel a Highway Patrol sting at the governor's mansion designed to catch a woman trying to smuggle contraband to her husband, who was a prison inmate in a work program at the mansion.

After the canceled sting was made public, top public safety officials participated in a coverup in which they made false statements to the inspector general's office and went to extraordinary lengths to block the agency's access to records.

The honors work program for inmates veered out of control, with supervision so lax that inmates ran a tobacco-smuggling businesses from the mansion and freely walked outside its boundary to pick up contraband. The inmates also had access to tools such as axes, chainsaws and knives with no accountability for them.