A Times Editorial

Dillinger's mistake

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 11, 2000

It is disappointing to see Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender Bob Dillinger squirm and equivocate over his decision first to accept campaign contributions from his employees and then to return the money. His actions say he erred, but his words still won't admit it.

Dillinger's election four years ago carried such promise, both for his formidable legal talent and his reformer's zeal to rebuild an out-of-touch office. Dillinger did infuse the office with professionalism. But his white hat is now smudged.

Many, including members of this editorial board, remember Dillinger promising in 1996 not to take contributions from public defender employees, as veteran incumbent Robert Jagger was doing. He now denies making that pledge, so let us revisit his 1996 campaign as he excoriated Jagger: The public defender office is "certainly a job where you shouldn't make your employees pay your way," Dillinger said. Or consider this sentence from a campaign letter: "I believe it is wrong for public employees to feel as if they must give money to one candidate or another in order to keep their jobs."

Yet in 2000, Dillinger collected $11,000 from his employees and their relatives. Here is how he justified it: "People were expected to contribute and work for the (Jagger) campaign," Dillinger told St. Petersburg Times staff writer William R. Levesque. "That's what I said I would never let happen."

Ah! So assistant public defenders had to give to Jagger, but they want to write a check to Dillinger.

On Wednesday, when a story in the Times pointed out this double talk, Dillinger said he would return his employees' money. But he wasn't ready to concede the point. "It was never my intention to pledge never to take such contributions, but as I see from today's newspaper article, some people do believe that is what I pledged," he said in a typed statement.

Maybe the stress of a campaign clouds a normally clear mind. Dillinger would have earned a lot more respect if he had just admitted he made a mistake and vowed not to let it happen again.

It's time for Dillinger to stop parsing pledges that contain the word "never" twice and get back to his real job, running a public defender's office that is both competent and ethically sound. It is convincing the voters of those qualities that will earn Dillinger another term.

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.