Eric-Kearney.JPG

State Sen. Eric Kearney, right, is not able to confirm how much he, his wife and their company have paid toward a pile of unpaid state and federal tax bills. At left is Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald, a Democratic candidate for governor who last week chose Kearney as his running mate.

(Al Behrman, The Associated Press)

CLEVELAND, Ohio – State Sen. Eric Kearney, the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, owes more in unpaid taxes than he and his campaign disclosed last week.

Since 1998, records show, the Internal Revenue Service and the state of Ohio have placed about $1 million in liens against Kearney, his wife and their publishing company. That's nearly five times higher than the $218,000 figure Kearney offered Friday when pressed about his tax debt.

There could be overlap between claims against the business and claims against the Kearneys. However, the Cincinnati lawmaker and aides to Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald, the gubernatorial prospect who chose Kearney a week ago as his running mate, are not confirming how much is owed.

Campaign spokesman Matt McGrath said Tuesday that FitzGerald knew about all of Kearney’s tax issues before selecting him. But McGrath said the campaign has sought payment records from the state and the IRS to better answer questions from reporters.

“We’ve requested documentation and are trying to track it down,” McGrath said.

On Friday, in response to questions from the Northeast Ohio Media Group, Kearney and McGrath downplayed as old news the IRS’ $73,560 lien against the state senator in 2010. The Cincinnati Enquirer had written about the unpaid taxes at the time, they noted, and Kearney won re-election to his Senate seat despite his opponent making it an issue.

The debt, Kearney said Friday, stemmed from bookkeeping errors by a now-deceased executive at Sesh Communications, which Kearney owns with his wife, Jan-Michele Lemon Kearney. The company, which also does business as KGL Media Group, publishes the Cincinnati Herald and other newspapers aimed at black readers.

The campaign on Friday also disclosed a $144,000 lien against Kearney’s wife and said the couple was on a payment plan and had reduced the debts to about $84,000.

McGrath said then that the campaign was committed to full disclosure of the issue. And Kearney, a lawyer and the minority leader in the Senate, denied having anything else to disclose at the time. “No, that’s it,” he replied when asked.

But records kept by the Hamilton County Recorder’s Office and reviewed by the Northeast Ohio Media Group show state liens against Sesh and KGL for unpaid unemployment compensation taxes totaling $105,000 since 1998. Another $683,000 in federal tax liens was found attached to Sesh or KGL.

Most of the state liens were first reported Tuesday by the Columbus Dispatch, while the additional federal liens were first reported Tuesday by the Enquirer.

“I interpreted the question differently,” Kearney said by telephone Tuesday when asked why he did not disclose the other tax bills when pressed on the subject last week.

Kearney blamed the state liens on another executive during an earlier time at Sesh.

A business partner had stolen equipment and harmed the business financially, Kearney said. Sesh formed a new company so it could keep printing and honoring advertising commitments, and Kearney believes some of the state taxes – how much he did not know – were wrongly assessed on the old company. He has begun paying down the debt, but he also is disputing how much he owes. He declined to disclose what his unpaid balance is.

Campaign officials said Kearney has accounted for the debt on his financial disclosure forms with the state’s Joint Legislative Ethics Committee. But Kearney is not required to disclose amounts, only names of those owed more than $1,000. For 2012 he listed the creditor as “ODOT,” which is the commonly used acronym for the Ohio Department of Transportation. The agency shares initials with the Ohio Department of Taxation.

As for the additional $683,000 in federal liens, the FitzGerald-Kearney campaign had no information Tuesday on how much of that amount, if any, had been paid.

Though Kearney has taken responsibility for at least some of the unpaid taxes, on Tuesday he attempted to distance himself from Sesh by saying he has “not been affiliated with the company since 2005,” though he confirmed he remains an owner. His wife remains active in the day-to-day operations of the company and its publications.

“I don’t even have a key to the office,” Kearney said.