Posted on 03/10/2002 6:31:22 PM PST by PJeffQ
SC Attorney General's Race Heats Up Again
Within the last two weeks, the tone of the Republican race for Attorney General has gotten quite nasty. With so many allegations being made about almost everyone in the race, we thought we'd present some of the information we'd discovered in the last week or two.
In the Charleston Post & Courier last week, Jon Ozmint banked on Republican hatred of SC Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian aiding his campaign by attacking him instead of any of his opponents.
According to the 3/5/02 story, Ozmint called Harpootlian "the Prince of Darkness" and "the face of evil in South Carolina."
Also, Ozmint claimed that everytime he had opposed Harpootlian in court he had defeated him and said "Give me a chance, and I'll beat him again."
According to that same story, John Hawkins met with a friendly audience and received no questions about the 12-year-old rape charge against him. None of the other candidates mentioned it either. However, the article reports that Ozmint may have been alluding to it when he said that "that the state's current policy is to prosecute those charged with crimes against women even when the victim declines to press charges."
According to the article, candidate Larry Richter did not attend the event.
Our crack research team had been hearing rumors for years about the former Judge and Lawmaker from Mount Pleasant. So we decided to do some digging to find out what was true and what was false.
Richter's time on the bench as a Circuit Judge seems to be the most controversial time in his career.
We will cover more of the details of that career tomorrow. However, here is a small preview.
An article in the April 3, 1988, edition of the News & Courier / Evening Post summarized a Joint Judicial Screening Committee hearing as follows:
"Opponents of Richter's re-election bid lined up behind Gedney Howe III in hurling charges that Richter attempted to lure a female law student to try cocaine, used his position to force another lawyer to pay off a personal debt and was involved in a real estate transaction with a man later convicted as a drug dealer."
Stay tuned tomorrow for more on the Attorney General's race...
Maybe the safest bet for the voter is to write-in somebody you trust.
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