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Maybe He’s Homesick
| PHOTO BY LARRY KUZNIEWSKI |
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On Monday, January 5th, two days after his team’s rousing win
over Saint Louis, the University of Memphis basketball coach didn’t
make it to The Tic Price Show on WREC-AM 600. Instead, Price sent
one of his assistants, Fred Rike. Price was in Jonesboro watching
Arkansas State and the University of New Orleans play a basketball
game. A little scouting trip maybe? Well, no, since neither team
is on the Tigers’ schedule this year. Price, who spent the past
three years as head coach at UNO, just wanted to see his old team.
Six days later, on the Sunday following his team’s heartbreaking
loss to Arkansas, Price was a no-show for his TV show on UPN-30,
sending another assistant, Johnny Jones. Wonder where UNO was
playing that night.
Self-Interest 101
An indignant student from the University of Memphis called the
Flyer last week to protest what he suspected to be abuse of the
student activities fund, a tidy account of nearly $100,000. When
the student was contacted a day later, he asked a reporter not
to look into the affair because a university administrator had
explained to him how to apply for some money to buy a computer
for his club. While the student still suspected some misappropriations
(there weren’t any), he asked the reporter to hold off on a story
because he thought his club would benefit in the end.
His organization? The Public Relations Club.
Tough Cookies
The American Journalism Review recently reported on Geoff Davidian,
editor and publisher of the Putnam Pit, an alternative newspaper
in Putnam County, Tennessee. In a case that could change what
constitutes a “public” record, Davidian has filed suit seeking
access to the “cookies” stored on the city of Cookeville’s computers,
which could show what web sites have been accessed from the system.
“Geoff wants to know what public officials are doing on the Internet,”
Davidian’s attorney told AJR . “If they’re visiting sports pages
and babes, we want to know.”
Sungold Turns Up Tin
Remember Sungold Gaming? Mayor Herenton, who sits on the company’s
board, exercised his option to buy 50,000 at $2.77 a share. On
August 11th, the trading of the stock was halted on the Vancouver
Stock Exchange at around $18 a share. After unsuccessfully petitioning
the VSE to commence trading, Sungold began trading on the NASDAQ
OTC Bulletin Board at the beginning of this year. At press time,
it was fetching a whopping $2.38 a share.
“The mayor was aware that it was trading,” says Herenton spokesperson
Carey Hoffman. “He didn’t say if he was trading. I don’t think
he has. That’s his personal business transaction. I don’t get
involved in that.” n |
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City Hands Over Pollow Settlement
by Phil Campbell
 he Memphis Flyer, victorious in its recent open-records lawsuit against the city
of Memphis, was scooped this week on its own story by The Commercial Appeal.
But first, some background. The Flyer filed a lawsuit in early
November to force the city to make public the details behind an
out-of-court settlement that the city had wanted to keep secret.
The agreement involved the case of Adam Pollow, a 29-year-old
student of the University of Memphis who died after allegedly
being mistreated by Memphis police officers. In early 1993, Pollow
was eating dinner at Bennigan’s in East Memphis when he began
choking. The police were called because the restaurant manager
thought Pollow was on drugs, according to the suit. Pollow was
put in a restrictive police constraint called a hog-tie by arresting
officers John Swift Ingram and Stan M. Ferguson III. The hog-tie
is so potentially dangerous that police director Walter Winfrey
banned the practice in 1994.
| PHOTO BY JOHN LANDRIGAN |
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Pearl and David Pollow in their East Memphis home. |
Pollow, left in the back of the police squad car, choked on his
own vomit, according to the autopsy report. The lawsuit claims
that the officers initially ignored his pleas for help, but eventually
took him to the hospital. Pollow died three days later.
The city settled with Pollow’s father and mother, David and Pearl,
before the trial began. The city drew up a settlement agreement
that forced the Pollows to keep quiet.
After spending three months and thousands of dollars in attorneys’
fees, the Flyer now has the documents U.S. District Judge Julia
Gibbons says the city never should have kept hidden in the first
place. To avoid a trial, the city paid David and Pearl Pollow
$475,000. If they publicly disclosed the monetary amount, they
would be fined $100,000.
The incident has left David Pollow bitter and frustrated. Adam
Pollow was his youngest child (the couple has another son and
a daughter), and he’s convinced that arresting officers Ingram
and Ferguson are to blame for Adam's death. In the past four years,
Pollow has been collecting newspaper clippings from around the
country of alleged police abuse, brutality, and corruption. Most
of the time he refers to cops and their respective departments
by a nickname: “Those bastards.” Pollow wants to sue again to
try to get more money, but Gibbons dismissed the case “with prejudice,”
meaning he has a slim chance of overturning a settlement agreement
that he himself agreed to.
“It really was on the advice of our attorneys that we settle and
get it over with,” says Pearl Pollow. She says she and David felt
pressured by Gibbons to settle because the judge limited the amount
of evidence they would be allowed to introduce.
“The amount was no issue as far as we were concerned,” she adds.
“We really wanted the two policemen to be the ones that paid [through
some] punishment. When you do something wrong, you expect to get
punished for it. For them [the arresting officers] to get off
scot-free is very hurtful to us. It isn’t monetary. We were ready
to settle for five bucks. But, unfortunately, [suing for money]
is the only way you have to go.”
That agreement had bound the Pollows from saying anything, but
was the city ever actually constrained from making public the
settlement information? The settlement agreement itself makes
no mention of forced silence on the city’s part. City attorneys,
however, chose to ignore that document and argued against disclosure
on the basis of another document, one that no one will ever be
allowed to see. This document was an order that Gibbons chose
to seal in the federal court. Its contents are unknown to everyone
except the plaintiffs, defendants, and their attorneys.
The Flyer lawsuit dragged on for more than two months because
the city insisted that the order that Gibbons sealed included
the settlement agreement. The city responded to the Flyer’s petition
in state court by pushing it to Gibbons’ court. Flyer attorney
Russell Headrick argued the case back to state Chancellor Floyd
Peete.
Peete ordered the records opened, but the city said it had to
go back to Gibbons for permission, given the nature of the federally
sealed order. Responding to the city’s request, Gibbons noted
that “the language of the [sealed] order does not prohibit the
city from disclosing the settlement agreement.” The city, then,
used two months of legal maneuverings before finally being told
by two judges to stop.
Even then, the city did not release the information to the newsweekly
right away. Instead, it gave the documents first to the CA. Assistant
City Attorney Sara Hall claimed on Friday afternoon that she didn’t
know where the settlement documents were, even as the CA was being
given those very documents. The daily ran the story about the
half-million-dollar deal on Monday morning. The Flyer picked up
the settlement documents later that day.
But the lawsuit isn’t over yet. Both the city and the Flyer are
waiting for Peete to rule on the implications of the case. The
Flyer is hoping that the chancellor will make a broad statement
to forbid the city from making confidential, out-of-court settlements
in the future, while the city wants the chancellor to rule the
Pollow case is unique, giving city attorneys free rein to strike
other private deals.
The Pollow case isn’t the first high-profile case in which the
city has made confidentiality agreements with a plaintiff. In
fact, Mayor Willie Herenton has been personally involved in two
lawsuits that ended in a secret settlement. Earlier in 1997, Herenton
was sued in federal court for reverse discrimination in the case
of Memphis Police Lt. Mike Wagner, who was fired on Herenton’s
orders, ignoring proper police-union procedure. To avoid a lengthy
appeal, Herenton settled out of court, but only after some details
of the agreement were made secret. Going further back in time,
when Herenton was the superintendent of the Memphis City Schools
in the late 1980s, the school board signed a confidentiality agreement
with Mahnaz Bahrmand, a math teacher who alleged that Herenton
broke a promise to marry her and ended a two-year affair that
involved two abortions and a miscarriage. n
Mississippi Casinos Reach Milestones
by John Branston
Three huge new casinos, a crackdown on bookmakers, and a visit
from the National Gambling Impact Study Commission are on tap
for the Mississippi gambling industry in 1998.
Mississippi’s 29 state-regulated casinos reached several milestones
in 1997, including an estimated $2 billion in gross revenue in
only the fifth year casinos have been in existence. Casinos in
Tunica and Coahoma counties accounted for roughly half of that.
Tunica County reached the $100 million mark in tax collections
in December.
“We see Tunica growing and I think it’s going to lead the Gulf
Coast for at least 1998 and probably 1999, too,” says Paul Harvey,
head of the Mississippi Gaming Commission.
The Gulf Coast will be bolstered by the addition of two new mega-properties
in 1998 – Imperial Palace and Beau Rivage. In Tunica, Gold Strike
casino, owned by Circus Circus, opened its revamped casino and
1,200-room hotel in December. No new competitors entered the Tunica
market last year, and one property, Harrah’s original casino,
closed and remains for sale.
Harvey expects the National Gambling Impact Study Commission to
visit Mississippi in February or March. The nine-member commission
meets in Atlantic City next week. Spokesman Amy Ricketts says
the date and location of future meetings will probably be on the
agenda.
The commission’s visit will probably bring a lot of national publicity
to Mississippi’s five-year-old casino industry, already the nation’s
third-largest market. Proponents will tout the rags-to-riches
angle, while gambling opponents are likely to tie casinos to Memphis’
bankruptcy rate, which is the highest in the country.
“It appears there is a strong anti-gaming bias by the chairwoman,
Kay Coles James,” says Harvey.
The commission has two years to complete its study. The agenda
for its Atlantic City visit includes stops at a rescue mission
and testimony from an expert panel on pathological gambling, as
well as testimony on the social and economic impacts of gambling.
Harvey says he plans to crack down on money laundering, illegal
gambling machines, and bookmaking this year. The commission has
busted more than 250 illegal machines in 54 Mississippi counties.
Now Harvey says he has the staff to focus more on white-collar
crimes like bookmaking.
“I know from living on the coast from 1988 to 1995 that there
is a lot of illegal bookmaking,” he says. “You can put a bet on
anything from a horse race to a college or pro game. And if you’re
going to launder money, a casino is a wonderful mechanism. You
would have to have your head in the sand if you didn’t think it
was going on.”
Harvey expects the state legislature to leave gambling taxes where
they are, and he defends the policy of putting gambling revenues
into the general fund.
“My problem with earmarking [revenues] is it just opens the door
to one special interest after another,” he says. n |
