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Letter to the editor

Mayor alleges election scheme

The Memphis mayor says he was the target of a sex scandal.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published June 26, 2007

MEMPHIS - Mayor Willie Herenton stepped before television cameras to announce he had made a startling discovery: Rich, white businessmen were plotting to derail his re-election by videotaping him having sex with a strip club waitress.

The revelation added a racial dimension to Herenton's campaign for a fifth term that would make him the longest-serving mayor in Memphis history.

Herenton, the city's first elected black mayor, issued a warning for the "snakes" conspiring against him.

"One snake who's been crawling in the grass finally raised his head, " the mayor said at a June 14 news conference. "But I want you to know that there's another snake in our midst ... and I'm going to put him on notice.

He offered no evidence and refused to name the "wealthy business leaders" he said were behind the plot.

The conspiracy claims came from Gwendolyn D. Smith, a 29-year-old former waitress who said she was offered $150, 000 to seduce the 67-year-old mayor and videotape their sexual encounter.

Smith made the allegations in a letter to the state prosecutor in Memphis. She said her former lawyer, Richard Fields, recruited her for the plot and promised she would be paid by unnamed "benefactors." She also accused Fields of sexually assaulting her.

Fields, who is white, is a well-known civil rights lawyer in Memphis. He was once married to Smith's cousin.

He denied Smith's allegations and described her as a con artist and drug abuser. "She's desperate for money, " he said. "She thinks the mayor or somebody will pay her money."

A recent poll in the Commercial Appeal newspaper found 60 percent of respondents were opposed to re-electing the mayor in October, with his popularity slipping among black as well as white voters.

A special state prosecutor has been appointed to look into Smith's allegations, and the Memphis police are investigating.

[Last modified June 26, 2007, 00:39:21]