A Bad Joke: Hege is running for office

The "Vote for Hege" signs mushrooming across parts of Davidson County you can see. The thick stacks of evidence gathered in the criminal prosecution of ex-sheriff -- and forever felon -- Gerald Hege being passed around you cannot.

But they're just as real and they're starting to be distributed with the same zeal and fervor shown by those misguided souls who would re-elect Hege no matter how many charges of corruption, intimidation and racial profiling still hang around his neck.

The bundles, which start with a "Memorandum in Support of Removing Defendant from Office" prepared by District Attorney Garry Frank and including 39 affidavits outlining the depths of Hege's criminal behavior, run to more than 120 pages each. Copiers in Davidson County are running through toner at a huge pace as Republicans and Democrats work to remind voters why Hege was ousted.

"I will do anything I can to help defeat the political ambitions of Gerald Hege," said Wayne Alley, a member of the Lexington City Council, who emphasized that he was speaking as a private citizen. "I'm not surprised by anything he does.… He's an egomaniac who will stop at nothing to get back into office and the limelight."

Can't own firearm

After Hege started making noises about a comeback, the signs started cropping up earlier this fall around the county and he started showing up at public events again.

I haven't seen him personally -- I don't live in Davidson County -- but others have said that Hege has intensified his campaigning in recent weeks by knocking on doors and showing up to speak at churches.

"It's all about the signs, baby," Hege said last night. "I was at the Midway parade last week. Took the Spider car and put it in a roped off area. I found it's better to talk to people than to just wave at 'em."

The official filing period doesn't open for another two months. Hege meekly resigned from office in 2004 as part of a plea arrangement that spared the self-styled "Toughest Sheriff in America" from prison time.

He was indicted on 15 felony counts in October 2003, including embezzlement and obstruction of justice charges. He pleaded guilty to two of them seven months later.

As an admitted felon, Hege is not allowed to own a firearm. His namesake, Gerald Hege Jr., got crushed in the 2006 Republican primary for sheriff -- a trouncing some viewed as a repudiation of the former high sheriff himself.

Hege said the 2010 campaign is about the future, not the past -- even as the evidence gathered against him makes it back into circulation.

"I tell people I'm a Vietnam veteran and I served my country," Hege said. "I tell them I made a mistake and I paid my debt. The Constitution says I can run again. A lot smarter people than me wrote the Constitution."

One would hope that county residents would have the good sense to recognize those things and that his candidacy should be treated as the bad joke it is. But you never know.

"It's early and nobody -- Sheriff (David) Grice or Terry Price -- is running publicly yet," Alley said yesterday. "The underlying thought process is ‘He can't win but we can't take any chances.'"

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Strangely, fear is another factor in play. One elected official -- a Republican -- I talked to about the Hege candidacy wouldn't be quoted by name.

"I have to live down here," he said. "You just don't know what can happen or what that sucker is capable of."

In any other county, that sentiment could be chalked up as paranoid rambling. In Davidson, you can't be certain.

Several of the affidavits taken from deputies who worked under Hege outline acts of intimidation and vindictiveness, including spying, destruction of personal property and threats.

People in Davidson County will no doubt recognize Alley's name. His brother, William, swore one of those affidavits after Hege refused to investigate the disappearance of his son, Mark Alley, because William Alley had supported another candidate for sheriff.

Wayne Alley said that he has no doubt that his nephew's disappearance -- the 10th anniversary of the case, which has not been solved, is Feb. 2 -- would have stood a much better chance if Hege had not ordered it stopped. That's much of the reason why he's speaking out now.

"Should he win, I understand you can be targeted," Alley said. "He's done it in the past, but I'm willing to come forward to make my position known. I'd like to see him beaten so badly that any thoughts of a political future are quashed forever."

ssexton@wsjournal.com



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