SEX! BLACKMAIL! PORNO! WHITE SUPREMACY!

Dewey Smith is a 77 year old Republican activist who has made his mark on Polk County politics during the past few years.

He was the main voice behind a drive five years ago that resulted in cutting the pay of county commissioners in half, as well as term limits. He also is the primary supporter in a current drive which would, if approved by voters, cut the pay of what are now constitutional officers such as the sheriff, property appraiser, clerk of the court, and supervisor of elections, as well as make them, in effect, department heads under the supervision of the county commission.

The latest petition drive resulted in Smith's being indicted by a grand jury for knowingly submitting petitions with forged signatures and accepting contributions above the legal limit. That case is still pending.

Now, Dewey Smith is offering himself for political office. He is a candidate for the Lakeland City Commission, seeking to unseat incumbant (and fellow Republican, although municipal elections are nonpartisan) Jim Verplanck. But did he REALLY expect to avoid a rehash of an old case from 1984?

The Lakeland Ledger this morning rehashed the allegations, although Smith was never arrested or charged.

Polk County sheriff's deputies in November of 1984 searched Smith's Lakeland home as part of an accusation brought fourth by a woman identified as his housekeeper. Ms. Vicki Hall, then 27, charged him with paying her for sex, taking pornographic pictures and videos of her, and threatening to show the pics to her husband if she didn't return $1,000 she says he gave her.

Smith accused her of stealing the $1,000 from his bathroom.

According to the Ledger:

They found and confiscated "marijuana residue and paraphernalia" and 107 Polaroid photographs produced at Smith's home "depicting obscene postures with men and women," records show.

The photos were kept in a safe in Smith's bathroom.

In the weeks following the search, the Sheriff's Office interviewed two other women. Both were identified from pornographic videos or tapes Smith had manufactured at his house, sheriff's investigators said.

Detectives filed complaint affidavits with the State Attorney's Office, accusing Smith of the manufacture of obscene, lewd materials and extortion.

Yet Smith was never arrested, and the prosecution of the complaints died in early January, 1985, records show.

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From one of the seized videotapes, [Sheriff's Detective Richard] Dobson, the investigator, identified Margaret Woodard, who was then 22. Attempts to locate Woodard for this story were unsuccessful.

In the lead-up to the search, Dobson consulted the Sheriff's Office "intelligence files" and came up with a 1982 report, in which Woodard accused Smith of punching her in the eye and tearing her blouse, leaving cuts below her right eye and on her breast. The alleged violence came after Smith accused Woodard of stealing money from him, the 1982 report said.

The 1982 incident report named Smith as the suspect. Yet no complaint affidavit was filed "due to a lack of information on the suspect," the report said.

Why no prosecution of Smith then? The Ledger reminds us that the period was rather tumultuous for Polk County law enforcement, as former Army colonel H.E. "Dan" Daniels --- a close friend of Smith's --- was elected sheriff in 1984, and Jerry Hill was elected the new State Attorney.

But neither Hill (who still serves as State Attorney today) nor (current) Polk Sheriff Grady Judd, who served in leadership positions in the various sheriff's investigations divisions before and after Daniels took office, said they felt any pressure from Daniels or anyone else to make the case go away.

Hill said he wasn't aware of the case at all in 1985 and that his understanding now is it was rejected by a State Attorney's Office staff member who deemed it too difficult to prosecute.

He said the political and managerial turmoil at the time may have contributed to a lack of follow-up on the case.

"The timing of that case (worked) to Dewey's benefit," Hill said this week. "There was a lot of change at the Sheriff's Office and State Attorney's Office."

Today, Hill said, "I believe that process would be handled differently."

Going back to the relationship between Dewey Smith and Dan Daniels, who died two years ago. Daniels was forced out of office after several embarassing revelations about his management of the Sheriff's Office. He later started a monthly tabloid publication, The Eagle, which mainly consisted of rants about the PCSO and the man who was appointed to replace him, former Lakeland police chief Lawrence W. Crow, Jr., State Attorney Hill, and blacks. He also founded the racist National Association for the Advancement of White People, and named Dewey Smith as one of it's directors.

Returning to the Ledger article:

While Smith avoided trial over the 1984 allegations, the records of the investigation have constituted a different type of trial since 2000.

The case has been common knowledge among Smith's political opponents, and multiple copies of the investigation records have circulated widely. Some of those opponents have lobbied The Ledger to print the allegations.

It's unclear who first learned of the records and copied them for circulation.

Asked whether the Sheriff's Office itself was involved in the dissemination of the records, Judd did not give a specific answer.

But he described the records as important indicators of Smith's character. Judd said the investigation shows that Smith is not the champion of reform and common people he declares himself to be.