Paul Davis: Powerful, corrupt continue to fall in Alabama

Well, it’s the holiday season and with each year, for some strange reason, lots of the folks we know or know of are being rounded up and are going off to jail or ending up with stained reputations that they’ll never overcome.

It seems that folks bent on doing wrong never seem to get enough of the things they seem to think will bring them fame, glory, envy and lots of dollars – usually dollars obtained the wrong way. And too often, those dollars come from the taxpayers.

The deepest cesspool was once believed to be Montgomery, but certainly Birmingham is running close behind, teetering on the brink of the largest bankruptcy of a governmental entity in the nation’s history. Stealing lots of the Birmingham money was its mayor, Larry Langford. He was recently found guilty on 16 counts and he’s going to jail. He worked his evil magic on the Jefferson County Commission before he brought his charm and destruction to the city of Birmingham.

Maybe five former commissioners have also been convicted in Jefferson County. And we have our share of all this corruption in Lee County where Roy Johnson picked up millions of taxpayer dollars while sticking it to Alabama’s taxpayers. His base of operation was Southern Union Junior College and then as chancellor of the all the state’s junior colleges.

When is enough, enough? In addition to a million-dollar home in Opelika, with much of it paid for by folks who did business with the colleges, Johnson also has places in the mountains and at the beach.

He had contracts with other Auburn businessmen too and they, too, have a date with justice. Add in Richard Scrushy, of HealthSouth notoriety and then former governor Don Siegelman of Alabama and heck, even old Bernie Madoff who scammed $65 billion from rich people who wanted to be richer.

Siegelman no longer has to wear a prison jumpsuit and mop floors. He’s out on appeal, but I’ll bet he goes back. Scrushy is still there, locked up in a Texas prison where he’s preaching the Gospel and singing in a prison band. My, how the mighty have fallen.

I’ve known most of these people most of my life. I still can’t believe what they have done nor that some of them may end their lives behind prison bars. Enjoying a warm fireplace in the den, friends and relatives over for the holidays. That’s over for many of them.

I received a long letter some time ago after I wrote my first stories about the terrible things Johnson was doing with taxpayers’ money. It was from Johnson’s daughter. That letter really stung. She said, in effect, that her daddy wouldn’t really do anything wrong. Can you tell a man’s child, even an adult child, that her father is a crook? No, that really doesn’t work.

She would have to hear the details from the prosecutors and the juries and the courts. Would she believe it then? What would she do after her father said it was true?
I don’t know. I just know it hurts. It really hurts.

Her father is gong to jail. He has confessed his crimes, is telling the prosecutors the names of all, I suppose, the others who paid to play.

He hurt himself, his family, and his friends and now he’ll spend all or a part of what we call our golden years in a prison jumpsuit, possible mopping floors alongside our former governor. Is it really worth it just to be called a rich man – for a little while?

Paul Davis writes a column for the Opelika-Auburn News. You can contact him at paul_davis@charter.net