Cost of Being a Mayor: Paid in Reeses' Cups, Cigarettes, and Pork Rinds

Recently in the www.Bristolnews.com articles covering the election in a small "po-dunk" town of Appalachia, VA where the elected mayor, along with 14 others have been charged with voter fraud in a recent election.  One of the candidates wanted to be electedso bad that he allegedly bought votes using Reeses' cups, cigarettes, and pork rinds.  This is something that could easily be a skit out of Mad TV, Saturday Night Live, or mention on the late night shows such as David Letterman.

Today, I learned my colleague, Gwen's mother was on the Grand Jury for this case.!   WHAT A HOOT!

Today's update is that one of the defendants reported has had violated his bond and was placed on house arrest and is only able to go to and from work using the most direct route without any stops inbetween.  News links:

  http://www.tricities.com/tristate/tri/news.apx.-content-articles-TRI-2006-04-04-0016.html 

http://search.tricities.com/DisplayCQArticle.jsp?sname=TRI&id=/content/articles/TRI/2006/03/15/0012

http://search.tricities.com/DisplayCQArticle.jsp?sname=TRI&id=/content/articles/TRI/2006/03/06/0051

http://search.tricities.com/DisplayCQArticle.jsp?sname=TRI&id=/content/articles/TRI/2006/03/18/0015

http://search.tricities.com/DisplayCQArticle.jsp?sname=TRI&id=/content/articles/TRI/2006/03/28/0023

http://search.tricities.com/DisplayCQArticle.jsp?sname=TRI&id=/content/articles/TRI/2006/03/28/0031