Storms: Show using sock puppet to threaten her

The county commissioner says a character on The White Chocolate Show, which she has said has criminally obscene content, said he wants to come to her home.

By BILL VARIAN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published May 3, 2002

TAMPA -- Hillsborough Commissioner Ronda Storms is claiming that a public access TV program featuring a sock puppet may have violated a law that protects public servants from threats of harm.

Storms, who recently called the show's content criminally obscene, now says that an April 17 episode of The White Chocolate Show has caused her to fear for her safety.

During the program, a puppet that goes by the name the Black Sock tells a puppet representing Storms that he wants to go to her home and perform a sex act on her.

"How is it you can say you're going to ride out to my house and do this?" said Storms, narrating a tape of the show for a reporter at her County Commission office Thursday. "No one has to agree with me. But civilized people should condemn that language."

Storms has sent the tape to the State Attorney's Office and the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, which are looking into the matter.

Both show producer Charles Perkins and his friend, Lorenzo Anderson, who plays the Black Sock, said they don't condone violence against Storms, nor are they encouraging it. They said the show, which began showcasing the Storms puppet after the commissioner launched an obscenity inquiry, is a satire.

"It's a dang sock with buttons for eyes talking about nothing," said Anderson, 25, an aspiring lawyer. "How many mother jokes are taken seriously? Does anyone of reasonable consciousness really believe they will happen?"

Perkins, 26, who plays host on the show as a pretend pimp, said Storms' reaction to the puppet was a further indication of her lack of perspective. He threatened to air future episodes with Storms being assailed by other items from the laundry basket.

"Ronda never ceases to amaze me in her efforts to get votes," said Perkins, 26. "Now she's playing on people's sympathy."

Storms said the show goes well beyond satire, with callers detailing graphic sexual acts they would like to perform on Storms. She also expressed dismay that others have not rallied to condemn it.

She said if a homosexual person was subjected to sexual threats or a black female was lynched in effigy, she is sure there would be an outcry from the media and public officials.

"Because I'm a conservative white female, people are remaining quiet and silent," Storms said.

Storms complained in March that an episode of a prior incarnation of the show contained obscene material. The State Attorney's Office is still investigating her complaint.

Since then, County Attorney Emeline Acton has notified operators of the county's public access station, Speak Up Tampa Bay, that the show violated its county contract. Speak Up Tampa Bay has threatened to sue on First Amendment grounds.

In the meantime, Perkins made a cut-out Storms puppet the star of his show.

The commissioner's latest complaint is based on a law that makes it a second-degree felony to harm or threaten to harm public servants or their family. The law was upheld in 1998 by the 2nd District Court of Appeal, which found a person's right to live free of unexpected harm outweighed free-speech considerations.

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