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Sen. Ginny Brown-Waite's husband and an employee's husband are caught making off with Karen Thurman signs.
By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 11, 2002
SPRING HILL -- It was just past midnight Thursday when Hernando County deputy William Power heard a loud crash.
He had been staking out a strip mall, which recently had been burglarized, when he saw a man running toward a pickup truck. The man jumped in, the truck drove away and Power followed.
A few blocks away, outside a local VFW hall, Power stopped the truck. Inside, he found a hammer, two pairs of gloves, four Karen Thurman for Congress signs, driver Larry Laxton and passenger Harvey Waite, husband of Thurman's Republican opponent, Ginny Brown-Waite.
After backup arrived, the deputies separated the men to ask about the signs.
According to the deputies' reports, Laxton, whose wife works in Brown-Waite's state Senate district office, told Power he had found the signs on the side of the road. Waite, a retired New York state trooper, told deputy Tom Brooks that the signs were from a construction site near his wife's campaign headquarters.
Suspicious, the deputies read the men their Miranda rights, cautioning them that anything they said could be used against them. They tried again.
This time, Laxton, 51, told Brooks he had driven Waite, who knocked down one sign and took the others. Waite, 62, told Power he had vandalized a Thurman sign near the strip mall where Power first heard the crashing sound.
Confronted with their inconsistencies, "Mr. Waite said, "We have been having a lot of our signs stolen and it is very frustrating,' " Brooks wrote.
The deputies did not arrest Waite or Laxton on misdemeanor charges of petty theft and criminal mischief. Instead, they took pictures of the evidence and let the men go home.
Power prepared a report to go to the State Attorney's Office if Thurman decides to press charges, Sheriff's Office spokesman Lt. Joe Paez said.
"She is the victim," Paez said Thursday afternoon. "It's her decision."
Thurman, whom Republicans consider vulnerable in a district that includes part or all of Hernando, Citrus and Pasco counties, had not decided whether to file a criminal complaint late Thursday.
"I'm sad for my supporters who contributed to pay for those signs and for the many volunteers who spent numerous hours putting them up," Thurman, D-Dunnellon, said in a written statement. "And I also hope this incident does not distract from the important issues that we've been talking about."
Brown-Waite, R-Brooksville, did not condone her husband's actions, which deflected attention from an otherwise strong campaign.
"My dog is going to be very angry, because my husband is going to be in the doghouse with him," Brown-Waite said.
She said what her husband did was not in character. He might have been frustrated and acted in a "lapse of judgment," Brown-Waite said, but "it is not right what he did in any way, shape or form."
Waite issued his own written statement.
"Over the past several weeks, Ginny Brown-Waite signs have been knocked down and removed across Florida's 5th District," he wrote.
"Last night, I exercised exceedingly poor judgment in knocking down a sign for Karen Thurman," Waite continued. "I sincerely apologize to the Thurman campaign and to the Brown-Waite campaign for my embarrassing behavior and poor judgment. I can assure both campaigns and the voters of the 5th District that such behavior will never happen again."
The political fallout of Waite's actions hinges largely on the local reaction, analysts said.
"By itself, in a vacuum, with a one-day news story, it probably isn't a fatal blow," said Jonathan Allen, a political writer who covers Florida for Congressional Quarterly, a publication owned by the Times Publishing Co., which also owns the St. Petersburg Times.
"But you never know," Allen continued. "Sometimes, things like that have legs. It certainly doesn't look good for Sen. Brown-Waite."
Stuart Rothenberg, one of the country's leading political observers, said this could hurt Brown-Waite. The extent, he said, depends on how other issues play in the campaign mix during the 26 days leading to the general election.
"Voters don't like dirty tricks," Rothenberg said. "It looks like a dirty trick. Destroying an opponent's campaign signs is looked on as reflecting on a candidate, and this time it's a spouse."
Independent candidate Jack Gargan, visiting Brooksville on a campaign stop, shook his head and slapped his forehead on hearing the news.
"What could I say? That's dumb," Gargan said of Waite's actions. He laughed. "Well, it won't hurt me."
Brian Moore also is in the race as an independent candidate.