Posted on 10/12/2006 5:16:32 PM PDT by mcg2000
In the early 1990s, during and after the time his congressman father fought bank fraud charges, Newton "Jake" Ford was arrested for assaulting his father and a former girlfriend, marijuana possession and driving while intoxicated. He said Thursday morning that his actions were a reaction to the stress the family was experiencing. Later in the interview, he said the marijuana and DWI arrests were unwarranted.
Fifteen years after the charges leading to Jake Ford’s arrests were dropped, details of his past have surfaced as he campaigns for the Ninth District seat once held by his father, Harold Ford Sr., and currently held by his brother, Harold Ford Jr. "As teens we all do things that we regret," Ford, 34, told The Commercial Appeal on Monday, echoing statements made during both a televised debate on Sunday and a Thursday afternoon press conference. "There were no convictions. Nothing permanent. There were just simple arrests."
"I am here for the citizens being forthcoming, because I am not above the law," Ford sad during the press conference.
District of Columbia Superior Court records obtained by The Commercial Appeal show that in May 1991, when Jake Ford was 18, he was arrested and charged with assaulting and threatening "in a menacing manner" his father. A few weeks later, the younger Ford failed to appear for a pretrial hearing and a bench warrant was issued for his arrest.
"Pretrial Services will note that the defendant’s father is in court today," the service’s representative, Brian F. Rybicki, wrote during Ford’s first court appearance on May 3, 1991. "Our information reflects that the father is also the complainant."
The charges were dropped, as were charges of violating bail and Ford would not describe the actions that led to the arrest for simple assault on his father.
In March 1993, Ford was arrested again, this time for possession of marijuana. In January 1994 he was arrested for driving while intoxicated. During the late afternoon press conference in front of Tower Records on Thursday, Ford said he was also charged with simple assault on a former girlfriend sometime in the early 1990s. He declined to say when and where this arrest took place.
As of publication, it was unclear whether the arrest for simple assault of the former girlfriend was ever prosecuted. According to court records, the 1991, 1993 and 1994 arrests were never prosecuted.
A nationwide public document search showed no record of felonies. Washington Metropolitan Police Department reports of the arrests were not available Thursday.
Ford’s legal run-ins occurred against the tumultuous backdrop of the elder Ford’s indictment on charges of bank fraud. Though he was acquitted of all charges, Ford Sr.’s trial proved a stressful ordeal for his family, Jake Ford said.
The afternoon the indictments were handed up, Jake Ford, then 14, said he walked home from St. Albans Boys’ School, a private college preparatory academy in Washington, and was met by news cameras and cars parked on his family’s front lawn. His brothers, Harold and Issac, looked anxiously on from inside.
"I came home and there were CNN cameras in front of the house," Jake Ford said. "And that’s how we found out."
The next few months and years were a blur of trips back and forth from Washington to Memphis to attend his father’s trial and part-time jobs such as bagging groceries and delivering mail to congressional offices. He struggled to keep up with the prep school’s rigorous curriculum and maintain friendships.
"It changed our lives because we lived in Washington," he said.
"It wasn’t what they said, it was what they didn’t say."
He left to attend Harker Preparatory School in Potomac, Md., for a year. Eventually he dropped out of school.
That’s when the trouble started.
He said he smoke marijuana "a couple of times" when he was 19 or 20 years old.
And while Jake Ford declined to elaborate on why he attacked his father back then, Jake Ford maintains the marijuana and driving while intoxicated charges were cases of mistaken arrests and police harassment. The Breathalyzer "never tested over the legal limit," he said.
"It wasn’t my marijuana, it was someone’s who was riding in the car with me," Ford said. "That’s why they dropped the charges."
During Sunday’s congressional debates, Ford criticized Democratic nominee state Sen. Steve Cohen for supporting legalizing medicinal marijuana. Cohen later implied Ford had an arrest record.
"My public life has been out there," Cohen said during the debates. "I’ve never been arrested and I think if you have been arrested and/or convicted, that is something the public ought to know about, and I have not nor has Mr. (Mark) White (the Republican candidate)."
Ford compared his arrests to a 1986 incident in Memphis, when eyewitnesses told reporters that Cohen yelled, cursed and kicked and jumped on the car hood of a 79-year-old woman who had rear-ended his new sports car.
Cohen admitted losing his cool but denied jumping on the hood.
"He assaulted an old woman," Ford said. "That’s the same thing as my situation."
Cohen disagrees.
"Maybe he doesn’t know the difference between assault, disorderly conduct and assaulting an automobile," Cohen said. "I hit her car, I didn’t hit her."
— Halimah Abdullah: 529-5806
—Bartholomew Sullivan: (202) 408-2726
Yolanda Jones contributed to this report.
Some chioce the people of this district have two socialist.
My district. We are hoping that if these two split the vote enough, the Republican (third candidate) will show up in the results.
The Ford Family in Memphis is like the Mafiosa or the Daley Family in Chicago!! Good grief...Harold said he was a Lawyer when he had NOT passed the BAR!!
DJ, have you heaqrd anything about the TN-09 race? It is not outside the range of possibility for the Republican to get 34% (Bush got 36% in 200 and 30% in 2004) and win the three-way race, with Cohen and Ford splitting the Democrat vote.
ping
It is way past time to break the Ford Machine!
From your mouth to GOD's ears.
I've been following it, but as for polling data, I've not seen anything. The Republican candidate I know very little about, and he seems to register little more than a blip on the radar, though he is campaigning, but all the fireworks are between "Joke" Ford (what Thad Matthews: http://www.thaddeusmatthews.com/blog.html , the local blogger, calls him) and Cohen. I still think it's Cohen's to lose. Of course, with 2 White guys and a Black in a district like this, Ford could win.
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