From the columbusdispatch.com:

Vanessa Niekamp said that when she was asked to run a child-support check on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher on Oct. 16, she thought it routine. A supervisor told her the man had contacted the state agency about his case.

Niekamp didn’t know she just had checked on “Joe the Plumber,” who was elevated the night before to presidential politics prominence as Republican John McCain’s example in a debate of an average American.

The senior manager would not learn about “Joe” for another week, when she said her boss informed her and directed her to write an e-mail stating her computer check was a legitimate inquiry.

The reason Niekamp said she was given for checking if there was a child-support case on Wurzelbacher does not match the reason given by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

Director Helen Jones-Kelley said her agency checks people who are “thrust into the public spotlight,” amid suggestions they may have come into money, to see if they owe support or are receiving undeserved public assistance.

Niekamp told The Dispatch she is unfamiliar with the practice of checking on the newly famous. “I’ve never done that before, I don’t know of anybody in my office who does that and I don’t remember anyone ever doing that,” she said today.

…

About 3 p.m. on Oct. 16, Niekamp said Carrie Brown, assistant deputy director for child support, asked her to run Wurzelbacher through the computer. Citing privacy laws, Niekamp would not say what, if anything, was found on “Joe.”

On Oct. 23, Niekamp said Doug Thompson, deputy director for child support, told her she had checked on “Joe the Plumber.” Thompson “literally demanded” that she write an e-mail to the agency’s chief privacy officer stating she checked the case for child-support purposes, she said.

Thompson told her that Jones-Kelley said Wurzelbacher might buy a plumbing business and could owe support. Thompson said he replied that he “would check him out.”

Niekamp, 38, a senior child-support manager, said she never heard any discussion of politics amid what her supervisors told her about the checks on Wurzelbacher.

Worried about her $69,000-a-year job and potential criminal charges, the 15-year state employee said she went to Inspector General Thomas P. Charles on Oct. 24. She has seen employees fired, and dismissed one herself, for illegally accessing personal information in support cases. Niekamp, a registered Republican, said politics played no role in what she told investigators.

hotair.com goes on to say the following:

The case gets even murkier.  The Dispatch, which has done yeoman work on this story, got the public records surrounding the Wurzelbacher inquiry — but Niekamp’s e-mail wasn’t included.  Nor did the records indicate any redaction or gap, as required by law.  Afterwards, a spokesperson for Governor Ted Strickland acknowledged the omission, saying that Niekamp’s status as a child-welfare agent exempted them from providing her e-mail.

What’s becoming apparent is that Ohio officials have something to hide.  The records-check request came from an assistant deputy director for child support.  When the story went public, the deputy director “literally demanded” Niekamp write the e-mail that would get them off the hook.  The agency’s leadership engaged in a cover-up — and that strongly implies that a crime got committed.

Niekamp told the Dispatch that she’s seen people get fired for unauthorized records checks, and that she herself fired one employee for the violation of public trust.  This has gone beyond just a mere firing.  It now looks as though Helen Jones-Kelley’s staff engaged in an attempt to obstruct justice, and Jones-Kelley’s lie about the Famous People Records Check appears to be part of it.

-Phil

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Update:

Helen Jones-Kelley has been put on paid administrative leave:

Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services and former head of that department in Montgomery County, has been placed on paid administrative leave by Gov. Ted Strickland.

Strickland said on Friday, Nov. 7, that he took the action “due to the possibility, as yet unconfirmed, that a state computer or state e-mail account was used to assist in political fund raising.”

“I have asked Inspector General Tom Charles to include this matter in his current, ongoing investigation,” Strickland said in a press release.