CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) -Several high ranking State of Ohio employees have asked a judge to dismiss the lawsuit trying to stop the use of [Unclaimed Funds](https://unclaimedfunds.ohio.gov/app/claim-search) to help build the Cleveland Browns a new stadium in Brook Park.
The lawsuit was filed by former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann in Franklyn County court saying this is an unconstitutional use of taxpayers dollars claimed or not.
“The money doesn’t belong to the state and so they are not entitled to spend it on new stadiums or anything else unless they undertake a constitutional process to take the funds from the rightful owners,” Dann said.
The motion filed this week, “Plaintiffs’ claims should be dismissed for a host of reasons: Plaintiffs have not suffered any actual or imminent injury; they have not attempted to recover their funds through the straightforward administrative process expressly designed to do just that; and their claims rest on conclusory allegations, policy critiques, and conjecture.”
When Ohio’s budget was signed last year, it included a plan to take $1.7 billion in unclaimed funds to be used for a new Ohio Cultural and Sports Facility Performance Grant Fund and Unclaimed Funds.
$600 million of that would go towards the proposed Cleveland Browns project.
Unclaimed funds come from a variety of sources, including dormant bank accounts and unclaimed class action lawsuit payouts.
The state is required to hang on to them until claimed.
At the time the budget was under debate, Republican lawmakers tried to reassure the public that only money that had sat dormant for more than 20 years would be used for the new project fund.
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