STEUBENVILLE — More than a year after investigators seized computers and files from Eastern Gateway Community College’s Steubenville campus, authorities still aren’t saying what it is they’re looking for — or if they’ve found it.

That raid, organized by the Ohio Auditor of State’s office, has chugged along quietly during the past 12 months even as a two-year-old federal lawsuit alleging the now-defunct community college breached its contract with a former business partner, the Student Resource Center, inched forward in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

The investigatory and legal worlds collided last month when, nearly two years into the court proceedings, the office of state Auditor Keith Farber asked U.S. District Court Judge Algernon Marbley to stay a hearing on motions for summary judgment for six months while it continued its behind-the-scenes investigation into financial irregularities, arguing that, doing otherwise “may impede the auditor’s ability to recover public funds.”

That motion, filed Dec. 11, alluded to the office’s “statutory duty to determine whether money has been illegally expended,” noting that the EGCC investigation, “by necessity, includes contracts and business dealings with numerous private individuals and companies.”

There was no indication in that motion as who or what the auditor’s office was targeting that would warrant halting federal court proceedings, albeit temporarily, and Marbley didn’t bite — telling attorneys for EGCC, SRC and the state that, if he decided to stay proceedings, oral arguments on SRC’s motion for summary would be continued until the stay is lifted.

Those oral arguments, however, on SRC’s motions for summary judgment did take place Dec. 27: Days later, Marbley issued his ruling–finding for SRC on several items, including its claim for $2,357,153.08 in profit-sharing payments prior to Spring 2022, while leaving the door open for further litigation on several other items.

SRC’s attorney, Robert Folland of the Columbus-based firm of Barnes & Thornburg, would not comment on the proceedings, saying, “Our client has a policy of not commenting on pending litigation.” The attorney representing EGCC’s interests, Adam Fuller of Brennan, Manna & Diamond of Akron, did not reply to a request for comment.

Marc Kovak, a spokesman with the state auditor’s office, meanwhile, would only say that, “As this involves an ongoing investigation, we have no further comment at this time.”

The auditor’s office previously rejected a Freedom of Information request for a copy of the search warrant, supporting documentation and an inventory of items seized during that raid, saying those documents were exempt from the public records act.

The target of the investigation has never been disclosed. Two high-ranking staff members — former EGCC president Jimmie Bruce and one-time Chief of Staff Jim Miller–had been indicted in Jefferson County in 2023 for misuse of college credit cards. Both indictments were later dismissed — Bruce’s the day before the raid, without prejudice, meaning prosecutors could refile at a later date. The Ohio Attorney General’s office had presented both cases.

EGCC employees, however, learned from their banks, not the state, that their personal banking records dating to 2015, the year Bruce took over as president, had been subpoenaed.

In seeking the stay, the attorney general’s office said that the auditor’s “investigation into the use of public funds by Eastern Gateway Community College and related officers, directors, employees, contractors, entities, and other business associates” was ongoing and argued that actions before the court “involve issues related to the auditor’s investigation and may impede the auditor’s ability to recover public funds.”

“The scope of the auditor’s investigation, by necessity, includes contracts and business dealings with numerous private individuals and companies,” the motion filed by the attorney general’s office noted. “As in all of the auditor’s investigations, the identification and recovery of ill-gotten or illegally expended public funds is of paramount importance.”

In its filing, Folland said it is “SRC’s understanding is that SRC is “not a target of the auditor’s investigation. He also had pointed out that EGCC is “in the process of winding down as an entity. By the time the proposed stay would expire, EGCC could very well have ceased to exist.”