[Between the Lines]

I thought that this guy was just a "character" but I found this recent article about him and he seems to me to be more of a sleaze and more than a bit touched.

Things that go boom in the night

He still runs his fireworks stands in SC. He claims to be a judge in a small border town in Texas though no one else seems to know about it. (He says he got himself made a judge because he was tired of the police and the FBI investigating him.) He moved his video poker enterprise to Texas after it was made illegal in South Carolina, but Texas didn't care for it either so he is opening a casino in Costa Rica.

[SquirrelKing]

You're right. Shine a little light on him and see the scales, huh?

There are only small degrees between being "an eccentric", "a character" or "a sleaze".