COMMUNIQUES FROM A DEAD MAN

Dateline; Friday, April 25, 2008
Location: deep inside a prison cell in Florida

SHAME ON YOU - MARK OBER AND ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS

Oh, no, Mark! You can't get away that easily. I took a couple of days to write about the PEN Literary award and the Anne Frank Center USA, but we can't let you slide by without much-needed scrutiny for too long.

If you read the "Tampa Tribune," you'll have heard about Mr. Kuhn, the car dealer who made $18,000 in illegal campaign contributions in a failed attempt to toss out a city council candidate who wouldn't make a zoning change for him. Mark Ober, the Hillsborough State Attorney and grand poobah who decides who gets charged and who doesn't declined to prosecute the car dealer, saying he was ignorant of the law, so he shouldn't suffer any legal impediments.

Columnist Daniel Ruth and others wondered why Ober would do this, since Mr. Kuhn has a couple of law degrees, and is probably more knowledgeable about the law than Mark is.

You'd be surprised what interesting reading campaign contribution lists can be. You learn some amazing facts. I've been reading Mark Ober's campaign contribution lists for close to eight years, and after studying the campaign finance laws (they do have a small prison law library with up-to-date books), I discovered all sorts of facts.

It is clear why Mark Ober is hesitant to prosecute anyone for campaign finance law violations since a sharp defense lawyer might follow my tracks and discover that Mark is guilty of the same thing! Shame on you, Mark!

And this is the guy who no one else is running against because he is unbeatable? Come on, folks! Perhaps if he played by the rules, it would be more of a contest, and some opponents would surface. Of course, if he played by the rules, he would never suborn perjury, threaten witnesses with prison unless they lied under oath, withhold evidence, or convict an innocent man of murder and send him to prison for life. Or would you, Mark?