If Thomas had any spare time he liked to go to the local Carnegie library, further from home than the one in Savannah, but blacks weren’t allowed in there. After two years at the grammar school, Thomas moved to a Catholic boarding school just outside Savannah, not because he had problems but because his grandfather was pushing him towards priesthood. Thomas was the only African-American in his class at St John Vianney Minor Seminary, and for the first time felt the brunt of severe racism. He was excluded from social activities by his classmates and constantly ridiculed because of his skin colour. However, Thomas persevered and eventually graduated with admirable grades.
The next rung on the ladder towards becoming a priest was enrolment in the Immaculate Conception Seminary in Missouri. However, racism was rife and he left after only a short while, saying that he could not stay in a school that didn’t practise what it preached. The final straw came when one of the students cheered at the news of Martin Luther King Jr’s murder.
Thomas worked with his grandfather for a while and then in 1968, enrolled in Holy Cross, a Jesuit college in Worcester, Massachusetts. It was here that Thomas felt truly comfortable with his colour. Not only had the college started an ambitious black recruitment programme in the wake of King’s death, but he also helped form the Black Student Union. In the union’s second year, the members decided it would be a good idea if all the members lived together in one dormitory, but Thomas was the sole dissenter, believing that everyone should profit from associating with the white majority. After much pressure Thomas gave in but said that he wanted his white roommate from the previous year to come and live with him. During his time at Holy Cross, Thomas was an avid supporter of the Black Panther Party, which was an African-American organisation set up to promote civil rights and self-defence. Because of this support he urged a student walkout in protest against investments in South Africa.
In 1971 Thomas graduated ninth in his class and achieved an honours degree in English. The day after his graduation, Thomas married his girlfriend, Kathy Ambush, a student at a Catholic woman’s college not far from Holy Cross.
Thomas had decided that he wanted to pursue a career in law, and was accepted at Yale University Law School under its ‘affirmative action programme’, which was aimed at increasing the representation of women and minorities in areas of education from which they have previously been excluded. However, Thomas didn’t want to feel privileged because of his race, and did everything possible not to draw attention to himself. While at Yale, Kathy gave birth to his only child, a son that they named Jamal. To prove his abilities not just to himself but to his superiors as well, Thomas decided to specialise in tax and anti-trust law and when he graduated he was highly sought after by firms who suggested he should do pro bono (for the public good) work. However, Thomas took this as an insult and decided to return to Missouri, where he took a position in the offices of Attorney General John Danforth. Danforth was a young Republican and quickly became Thomas’s political mentor. As the only African-American in the office, Thomas requested that he be allowed to work on taxes cases not civil rights.
In 1977 Danforth was elected to the Senate and Thomas decided to take a job in the private sector, working in the pesticide and agricultural department of the Monsanto Company, a St. Louis business that specialised in chemicals. His job there was mainly getting pesticides through government registration. This job lasted about two years when Thomas decided to head for Washington to work for Danforth once again, but this time as his legislative aide. As before he avoided any racist issues at work, but on the other side of the coin decided to join the black conservative movement, which felt that preferential treatment towards African-Americans did more harm than good. Thomas believed that the only way that African-Americans could make their way in the world was by helping themselves.
When Thomas attended a conference of black conservatives in 1980, the Washington Post wrote an article about him which was brought to the attention of President Ronald Reagan. The president offered him a job as the assistant secretary for civil rights in his department of education. Thomas decided to accept the job and was quickly promoted to head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). However, Thomas had a tough time in this position, which concentrated on laws against discrimination in the workplace. The Reagan administration found he was too independent-minded, but Thomas gradually bought them round to his way of thinking and made a lot of changes.
These changes in the EEOC, however, angered many of the civil rights groups, on top of this he had personal problems which made things difficult for Thomas. His grandfather died in 1983 and the following year divorced his wife, although he managed to keep custody of his son. Two years later he met the woman who was to become his second wife, Virginia Lamp, who was a senior aide to Republican Dick Armey.
the us courts and a scandal
No one was really surprised, due to his success in the government offices, when Thomas was appointed a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1990. When Thurgood Marshall – the first African-American to be appointed to the Supreme Court – retired in 1991, the new president, George Bush, decided to elevate Thomas to the Supreme Court. This nomination, however, met with strong opposition from the minority groups who opposed Thomas’s conservative views on civil rights. He withstood many days of questioning from the Judiciary Committee, but they were unable to shake him on his views.
Just when his nomination looked as though it would be passed, a sensational scandal broke which looked as though it was about to ruin his career. The press had leaked information about an FBI report which had been shown to the Judiciary Committee, alleging that Thomas had sexually harassed a former employee at the EEOC, Professor Anita Hill. Hill, now a professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, was brought in for questioning by the Committee. Amid a flurry of controversy, the hearing was reopened and the nation was transfixed as the case was relayed via television network. Hill, who was also an African-American and a Yale Law School graduate, outlined her allegations in full detail. Thomas categorically denied the charges and said the whole ordeal was ‘a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks’.
After a long and drawn-out hearing, the Committee failed to uncover any positive proof of Hill’s allegations and in the end the Senate voted 52 against 48 to confirm Thomas’s nomination into the Supreme Court. At the age of 43, Thomas is the youngest member of the court and is known for his habit of listening rather than asking questions, something which he said he developed as a young boy.
Judge Dallas Powers
Judge Dallas Powers and his wife, Joyce, have lived in Warren County, Ohio, since 1964. They have two children and three grandchildren and were a well-respected and popular family. Powers has a Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of Dayton and a Degree of Juris Doctor from Chase College of Law. Powers also served as a first lieutenant in the United States Army, finally being discharged in May 1968.
Powers is a member of the Ohio Bar Association, American Bar Association, Warren County Bar Association and The Ohio Association of County and Municipal Court Judges and was the first elected judge of the Warren County Court in November 1988. He has given a lot of support to education and children’s recreational activities and so it was a huge scandal when this upstanding citizen was accused of public indecency in the courthouse.
Together with his former probation officer, 34-year-old Libbie Sexton, Powers was accused of 13 felonies and three misdemeanour charges of sexual indecency. Powers also faced charges of theft, involving more than $5,000 in regular and overtime hours which he authorised for Sexton from December 2001 to November 2004.
Powers’ troubles started on 30 August 2004, when a court employee walked into the judge’s office and found him and and Sexton engaged in a sexual act. The employee reported the incident to another part-time judge and Powers was questioned over the indiscretion. Powers claimed that everyone knew about the affair and added, ‘The complaints didn’t come
because of the affair. It was because of the preferential treatment. The other employees didn’t like that when there was overtime Sexton got it or that she wore what she wanted at work’.
more allegations
Once the investigation got underway, more allegations started to come out of the woodwork. Sexual harassment and discrimination charges arose against the judge who, now in his 70s, had had a career that spanned over 27 years. There was even a civil suit that alleged Powers trained courtroom cameras at some of the female attorneys to ‘observe their physiques’. Several of the employees at the court said they had actually witnessed sexual activity between Powers and Sexton on more than one occasion.
Powers’ lawyer advised him to stay away from the courthouse until the dust had started to settle, but after stewing over the situation over the Christmas period, he decided to return to work. However, instead of keeping his head down he foolishingly sacked three members of the probation department for insubordination. This action incensed much of the staff at the court and further accusations followed.
details of allegations
In September 2004 another sexual misconduct complaint was made against the judge. One of the Warren Court employees, Terry Smith alleged that Powers had been discriminating against her in favour of a junior deputy clerk by the name of Libbie Gerondale. She had been hired by Powers in December 2001, causing Smith to have to take time off from work because of stress. Smith was head county court clerk and, although she would normally be present when Powers hired junior clerks, on this occasion he told her that her presence wasn’t required.
Smith claims that it was common knowledge that Powers was having a sexual relationship with 34-year-old Gerondale, and said that she knew that there was something going on right from the start. Smith went on to say that there was a certain standard of clothing that was permissible at the courts, and that she had had to warn miss Gerondale on several occasions about wearing short skirts and low-cut blouses.
Smith said she then became aware of the amount of overtime that Gerondale was clocking up, far more than any of the other clerks, and eventually Powers decided to assign Gerondale to another supervisor, taking away Smith’s powers over her. In his own defence Powers said he took this action because there was a certain amount of friction between the two women. When Smith approached Powers again and complained about the preferential treatment that Gerondale was getting, he demoted Smith and took away many of her statutory duties.
Smith’s complaints against Powers were taken seriously and became part of a much larger investigation. When another woman levied a sexual harassment complaint against Powers, it prompted county officials to start interviewing all court employees. The latest accusation meant that almost one-third of the court’s 17 female employees have made complaints against the judge.
One woman alleged that Powers had fondled her and pressurised her into sexual contact in his court chambers. Another said that Powers was discriminating against the women who were not prepared to provide him with sexual favours.
As the investigation progressed, it was disturbing that there were so many allegations but they had taken so long to come out. Court employees told the investigators that Powers’ behaviour had disturbed them, but many felt too intimidated to complain. Several people said that his general manner and demeanour led people to be afraid of him. It wasn’t until one woman was brave enough to speak out that the others were prepared to give witness as well.
the outcome
Judge Dallas Powers was the first Ohio judge to be prosecuted with sex crimes in his own courtroom. In a deal with prosecutors, Powers agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanours – lesser crimes of intimidation and showing preference to a public employee – but denied the counts of public indencency. He was told he would have to serve three years’ probation and could not hold a public office for seven years. Already in his 70s, Powers has now retired, bringing an end to his 27 years as a United States judge.
Debra Lafave
Debra Lafave was a beautiful, 23-year-old female teacher who admitted to having sex with one of her under-age pupils. Although she certainly wasn’t the first teacher – or indeed the last – to be caught for such an illicit liaison, her story became an international scandal.
the full story
To perhaps try and understand why Lafave acted the way she did, it is necessary to dig deep into her past. For it is here that we find a trauma that affected her so badly, it was something she said she could never recover from. Debra Beasley was born on 28 August 1980 in Tampa, Florida, and had an older sister, Angie, whom she adored. However, as a young child Debra suffered from many insecurities – phobias, panic attacks and obsessions – all which marred her adolescent life. When she was in the eighth grade and just 13 years old, Debra was raped in school. She was forced into a lavatory and the boy began to rape her until a teacher came in and stopped him. Debra was too frightened to tell the teacher that she had not been a willing participant and ironically, the boy was not just a fellow schoolmate, but one of her boyfriends. She became to believe that men were always the dominant one in a sexual relationship and that the woman had to please them.
By the age of 15, Debra had developed an eating disorder and was starting to rely on drink to try and make her life bearable. She also attempted to commit suicide twice, once by taking an overdose of pills and secondly by slitting her wrists. The main problem was that Debra was stunningly beautiful and she was like a magnet to men. Many of her friends said that she ought to become a model and by the age of 18, she worked for a magazine called Makes and Models.
Despite her beauty, Debra also had brains and wanted to achieve more in her life and went to study English at the University of South Florida, with the goal of becoming a teacher. Although she managed to stop drinking, Debra still suffered from spells of depression and was forced to take antidepressants, which after a spell failed to have any effect.
The years before Debra graduated she was devastated by the news that her sister had been killed in a car accident. Debra still feels today that if Angie had been around she would never have committed the stupid act that would change her future. Despite all her problems, Debra managed to graduate and took a job as an eighth grade reading teacher at the Greco Middle School in a Tampa suburb.
Her first year went well, she was a popular teacher and added to that she also married Owen Lafave, a man she had been dating for five years. The relationship was going well, they were best friends, they did everything together, but it was still marred by Debra’s bouts of severe depression. Like many sufferers of bi-polar disorder (which she was later diagnosed with), Debra had her spells of extreme highs and extreme lows, but for the most part Owen coped with his wife’s illness, but the drinking started to get him down.
meeting the boy
Debra was aware that her looks got her a lot of attention, but she didn’t realise the effect she was having on one 14-year-old boy. One of Debra’s friends used to coach the school football team and on occasion she would go along as extra support. One of the boys starting making himself known to Debra, just doing silly things like waving and saying ‘Hi’ every time he saw her. The friendship started to get out of hand when Debra chaperoned a field trip to Sea World in 2004 and the boy in question was in her group. Owen was also on the trip and, although nothing untoward took place, Debra and the young boy started to talk and became friends.
After the trip the friendship started to spiral out of control. Debra was a very delicate individual and the young boy started to become flirtatious. Although in her heart she knew she was the role model to this young boy, somehow she crossed a line that should never have been crossed.
In spring 2004 the 23-year-old professional seemed to transform into an out-of-control adolescent. She started smoking, listening to rap music and also dressed in a very provocative way, which didn’t go unnoticed by her fellow teachers. Although her husband and some of her colleagues made a few comments, Debra just shrugged it off. Duri
ng this period she was spending more and more time with the 14-year-old boy, one of her students, and he was becoming more and more flirtatious with each meeting. Instead of being a responsible teacher, Debra drew the boy closer and closer into her confidence without his parents’ knowledge. She started driving the boy to and from basketball games and she admitted later on that as her attraction for the boy grew, her mental state started to deteriorate.
At the time, Debra could not see that she was doing anything wrong – after all nothing had actually happened. But then she took the next step – a very dangerous step – she kissed him. Her attraction for the boy turned into a full-blown crush.
A week or so after the kiss in the classroom, just as the summer holidays were about to start, the boy was staying with his cousin in Ocala, about 160 km (100 miles) away from Tampa. On 3 June Debra became desperate to see the boy and, while Owen was out at work, she decided to drive to Ocala to see him. She picked up the boy and his cousin and drove them all the way back to her flat. She ordered pizza for them all, rented a movie and, while his cousin watched the television, Debra took the boy upstairs to her bedroom and they engaged in oral sex.
suspicions
Although they had been married for less than a year, Owen was starting to become suspicious and suspected his wife of having an affair. He even told his mother that he thought Debra was being unfaithful, but at the time never dreamt that it was with one of her own students.
Infamous Scandals Page 21
