Although many in the media made merry in the last week or
so with a scenario in which former state Senator John Ford might use as a
defense in his forthcoming extortion trial a private film made by undercover
informant Tim Willis, the prospects for any such miraculous rescue took
another hit this week.
As of press time, State Senator Kathryn Bowers, one
of Ford’s fellow indictees in the FBI’s Tennessee Waltz sting that netted
several state legislators last year, has not yet changed her plea from not
guilty to guilty, following the lead of several other indictees, including
former Shelby County Commissioner Michael Hooks Sr., who did so only last
week.
But Bowers seemed to be preparing the way for such a plea
change when she announced on Monday her decision to vacate her District 33 state
Senate seat, effective September 1.
Bowers’ decision, communicated first by letter to Lt.
Governor John Wilder, the Senate’s presiding officer, and later to the
media at large, followed a statement about health concerns she had made last
week, when, on the day Hooks changed his pleas before U.s. District Judge
John D. Breen, Bowers asked for additional time to consider her own plea.
The other shoe dropped with Bowers’ Monday statement that
she was formally resigning her office on “medical advice.” Her resignation comes
in time for the local Democratic Party to appoint a successor on the November
ballot for her District 33 senate post.
The party will have until September 28th to meet and do so,
said Jim Kyle, the Democrats’ Senate leader and Bowers’ Memphis
colleague. Kyle also noted that illness and a finding of legal ineligibility
were the only two allowable reasons for a certified nominee to exit the ballot.
The medical out also leaves intact Bowers’ pension arrangements.
The diminutive but influential legislator is scheduled to
make a formal plea in her extortion case on September 5th, four days
after her official resignation date.
In her letter to Wilder,
Bowers repeated her declarations of last week that she had experienced
“considerable stress…that has taken its toll on my health.”
The precipitating incident,
she said, was a near-accident on a mountaintop last week in which, in the course
of returning from a Knoxville conference on minority health matters, she lost
control of her Chevrolet Blazer when the tread separated from one of the
vehicle’s tires.
“The Blazer went from the left
side to the right side of the Interstate twice with no other cars in my path. I
came to a perfect stop in the emergency lane with no one hurt. I thank God I am
alive today,” Bowers said.
Bowers said on Monday that she
mulled things over after returning to Memphis and made her decision to resign
over the weekend. She called party caucus chairman Joe Haynes of
Goodlettsville, who tried to talk her out of resigning, she said. (Haynes issued
a statement Monday expressing “regret” at Bowers’ decision.)
A factor that hastened her
decision was her determination to “spare the people of Shelby County the expense
of a special election,” Bowers said. She gave no indication of what her plea
would be at her September 5th court date, saying that her legal status had not
entered into her thinking.
The likelihood of a plea change to guilty was being taken
as a given elsewhere, though – especially since her attorney, William Massey,
had said after last week’s hearing, “”We’re always re-evaluating our position,
in light of everyone else, in light of the discovery we’ve had,” and gone on to
tell reporters that it was possible a trial would not be “necessary.”
In the meantime, a brief flurry of excitement had been
created by WMC-TV reporter Darrell Phillips’ disclosure that FBI
informant and sting go-between Willis, who aspires to be a filmmaker, had
actually made a movie in the same office space used for sting purposes by the
phony FBI computer company eCycle.
The movie, which employed the services of Circuit Court
Judge and sometime actor D’Army Bailey, featured a sting plot remarkably
similar to the one employed, with Willis’ help, by the FBI, and unofficial word
came from sources close to John Ford indicating that the former state senator
might attempt to represent FBI videotapes of himself accepting cash in that
light.
One problem: The money doled out by the FBI – some $50,000
in Ford’s case – was not play money but bona fide U.S. currency, legal tender
that went into the bank accounts of the defendants or presumably was spent.
Other problems relate to the presumed existence of other video- and audiotapes
made in other locations containing incriminating detail not explainable by the
requirements of a film plot.
In any case, the recent actions taken by Hooks and Bowers
would not seem to provide any aid or comfort to Ford or assistance to his
defense strategy.
jb
*In the wake of Bowers’ departure, speculation
immediately went to the question of who might be nominated by the Shelby County
Democratic executive committee to succeed her. The committee’s next scheduled
meeting is September 7th, but it would have three weeks after that
date to formalize a decision.
One likely candidate would be realtor Steve Webster,
who ran second to Bowers in the August statewide primary election just
concluded. In his race, Webster, a former Bowers supporter, eschewed direct
references to the incumbent’s pending legal problems. Which is to say, he has
burned no bridges with Bowers’ support group.
The exit of Bowers from the District 33 seat underlined
several ironies related to the Tennessee Waltz saga. Bowers’ unsuccessful
opponent in the special 2005 Democratic primary to fill the seat was – Michael
Hooks Sr. And the seat had been made vacant in the first place by the
resignation of longtime incumbent Roscoe Dixon, who earlier this summer
was convicted in federal court on several counts relating to the Tennessee Waltz
sting.
Dixon had vacated his senate seat in order to accept a job
as an aide to Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton (who demanded – and got – Dixon’s
resignation upon his indictment in May 2005). The former senator then lobbied
for the Shelby County Commission to accept as his interim successor one Barry
Myers, a longtime Dixon aide who himself was indicted on Tennessee Waltz
charges, pleaded guilty, and became a witness for the government. (Sidney
Chism, currently a Shelby County Commissioner-elect, got the commission’s
nod instead of Myers.)
Given that kind of history surrounding the seat, local
Democrats will no doubt employ special care in selecting a senate nominee to
replace Bowers on the November ballot.
jb
*The name of Hooks, who had resigned his own
commission seat just previous to his guilty plea, was omitted from the roster of
commissioners that appeared on the agenda forms at Monday’s regular commission
meeting. Nor was the former commissioner included among the exiting members –
seven in all – who were cited for their service and given commemorative plaques.
But two of those departing members – Bruce
Thompson and chairman Tom Moss – made a point of acknowledging Hooks’
services in statements made later from their commission seats prior to the start
of regular business.
jb
*Joe Ford Jr., third-place finisher in last
month’s Democratic primary for the District 9 congressional seat, made a point
last week of reaffirming his endorsement of that primary’s winner, state Senator
Steve Cohen.
Ford also posted lengthy comments on the “Space Ninja” blog
rebutting claims by the Tri-State Defender newspaper that his candidacy had
not been serious and may even have been designed to detract from the primary
efforts of another candidate, outgoing county commissioner Julian Bolton.
After debunking the newspaper’s claims and making the case
that he and several other candidates had waged more viable campaigns than Bolton
(whom the Tri-StateDefender had endorsed), Ford concluded:
“The purpose of American
representative government is ensure that all people have a voice in the
government. And when all people stated their choice, like it or not, more people
wanted Sen. Cohen than any other candidate. Sen. Cohen could not have won this
election without receiving a good number of African-American votes.”
Although problems associated
with the vote-reporting process made it difficult to say for
sure, preliminary estimates suggest that Cohen may have received as much as 20
percent of the district’s African-American vote.
