The state intern who was fired after a computer backup tape was stolen from his car says he is being made a scapegoat for simply doing what he was told.

In a statement e-mailed to The Dispatch and other media outlets, Jared Ilovar, a 22-year-old college student, also asks Gov. Ted Strickland's office for another internship.

“I would like to move forward,” Ilovar wrote. “I have several months before I graduate in March, 2008, and I know I would be an asset to any office.

“Maybe Governor Strickland's office will give me the opportunity.”

That won't be happening, Strickland spokeswoman Amanda Wurst said.

“Gov Strickland wishes Jared the best in his future endeavors but will not be offering him an internship,” she said.

It was Ilovar's first public statement since he was fired Friday after he refused to resign in the wake of an Ohio inspector general's report about the theft of the data tape containing the Social Security numbers and other sensitive information for 1.2 million individuals, businesses and other entities.

State officials don't think the tape has or will be used to steal anyone's identity, but taxpayers are paying an estimated $2.2 million for identity-theft protection and prevention services for all affected individuals.

Reached by phone this morning, Ilovar declined further comment on advice of his attorney.

Ilovar said in his statement that he initially was asked to resign, but that when he asked for an hour to think about it, state officials told him he had to resign immediately. He said he felt pressured to sign.

“There I was the college intern under duress being forced to sign away what I felt was an opportunity of a lifetime,” he wrote. Ilovar said that after talking to his parents, he was allowed to rescind his resignation and was fired.

Ilovar also said he feels like a scapegoat, despite Strickland's insistence that he is not.

Strickland has said he thinks the firing was justified because Ilovar had admitted that leaving the tape in his car was not a one-time mistake and that he brought the tape into his apartment only about 85 percent of the time during the six weeks he had the responsibility.

But Ilovar said he was never given clear instructions by his bosses about how to handle the tape. According to a transcript of his interview with investigators, he said other interns gave him the responsibility of handling the tapes and might have told him not to leave them in his car — not for security reasons, but because they could be damaged by the heat..

“Should I have left the tapes in my car that night, obviously the answer is no,” he wrote, but he insisted that he wasn't aware at the time that he was making any mistakes, and that his essential instructions were to bring the tapes back the next day.

Ilovar also said when he first reported the theft on June 11, his bosses at the Ohio Administrative Knowledge System instructed him not to tell Hilliard police what was on the tape — and the State Highway Patrol was not called in until three days later.

Inspector General Thomas P. Charles' report concludes that squelched the best chance to recover the tape if it had been discarded because the trash at Ilovar's Hilliard apartment complex was picked up on June 12.

“Interesting enough following my employer's instructions has caused me quite a bit of anguish,” Ilovar wrote. “Because of my following their instruction about not telling the police department about the sensitive data on the tape I was looked upon as if I was the criminal.”

The former intern noted he passed a three-hour polygraph test to prove he wasn't involved in the theft.

“For the record I was never involved in the theft of the tape and the investigators came to the same conclusion,” Ilovar wrote. “I was a victim of a random car theft, and now I am the scapegoat for the State of Ohio.”

Wurst, Strickland's spokeswoman, would only say the governor feels that appropriate disciplinary action was taken in response to Charles' report.

The project manager for the Ohio Administrative Knowledge System also resigned under pressure, two contract employees were fired and a disciplinary review against two others was started.

Ilovar suggests he shouldn't have been the one taking the tape home because the policy in place at the state's new $158 million payroll and accounting system called for the network administrator to take the backup tape home for safekeeping.

Officials have said they interpreted the policy as applying to interns because they were functioning like network administrators.

“As an intern, I do not create policy, I do not interpret policy, and I do not question policy,” Ilovar wrote. "I do what I am instructed to do. Take the tapes out of the building and return them the next day. … Failure and responsibility starts at the top.”

Ilovar also notes that with a policy of sending backup tapes home, they could be stolen almost anytime.

“It is unreasonable to assume that I would never make any stops along the route at night with the backup tapes in my possession,” Ilovar wrote.

Ilovar also insists his car was locked when the tape was stolen from it late June 10 or early June 11. Hilliard police have said that other cars burglarized in that lot were damaged but Ilovar's was not, so they concluded his was unlocked.