What Took So Long?
The story of Timothy McEachern, major political supportor and brother-in-law of Columbia County District Attorney Beth Cozzolino, paying a $700 fine when he could have faced four years in prison for driving while legally drunk with his children in the car has finally made it to the Register-Star. Local news aggregators have been buzzing about the possibility of an "insider deal" ever since the Times-Union broke story on Saturday, July 9. Now, four days later, the Register-Star publishes its story, "Sentence reduction raises questions for DA," along with a second story explaining Leandra's Law.
Columbia County is no different from backwoods Mississippi -- worse, maybe, because in Mississippi in my experience, people don't pretend to be better than they are.
ReplyDeleteThere is definitely one standard -- in everything -- for the insiders and another standard for everyone else in Columbia County. That's why one hires a certain lawyer for a certain problem in these parts.
The teenage punk son of a locally prominent man was caught by the cops joyriding in someone's car, and the arrest and plea two months later were expunged from the record entirely (i.e., never happened according to the law). The father bragged to me about what he had arranged, so that I know this really took place.
I'll take Mississippi.
--Jock Spivy
The answer to your headline is simple: research. I don't have the luxury of reporting on rumor or even information reported by another news source. after the TU scooped us on this story I had to go back and start from the beginning to see all the evidence myself. I hope you can respect that.
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