More On Larry Craig

J.J. Jackson* | September 15, 2007

This whole incident in a men’s room keeps getting weirder and weirder.

MINNEAPOLIS, Sept. 6 — The airport men’s room where Senator Larry E. Craig was arrested here in a police sting operation is in one of the busiest areas of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, at the intersection of five concourses and near a bustling mall and food court.Mr. Craig passed through the terminal regularly as he traveled between his home district in Boise, Idaho, and his Congressional offices in Washington.

The details of his arrest shocked his colleagues and constituents, but he was not the only person ensnarled in the airport police enforcement action against what the authorities said was lewd conduct in the restroom. Thirty-nine other men were arrested here in a three-month period this summer.

A review of their cases and interviews with four lawyers representing many of the accused show how Mr. Craig — who pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct but now says he is innocent — fits into the larger picture of the sting operation, and sheds light on his prospects in court should he be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea.

Police and court files indicate that Mr. Craig’s case may have been handled more harshly than some of the others. For instance, he alone among the 40 men arrested was charged with both disorderly conduct and interference with privacy. The other men were charged with one or the other, or with indecent exposure or loitering.

Patrick Hogan, a spokesman for the airport and the law firm it hired to prosecute the cases, said Mr. Craig was the only man charged with two offenses because he had peered into the police officer’s stall and had used unspoken signals — foot tapping and hand motions — known as ways to solicit restroom sex.

Wait … back up the turnip truck here! Did I read that right? Mr. Craig was the only man among the 40 caught who peered into the stall AND used “unspoken signals”? But didn’t the arresting officer claim that he had seen this before and knew what he was looking for? Where? In another restroom perhaps? Because apparently it wasn’t at this airport.

Were some of these men just arrested for “peering” into stalls even though they didn’t use hand motions or foot tapping based on the officer’s word? Talk about a weak case!

Again, please show me a tape of this. I would REALLY like to see some corroborating evidence to back up these charges. Even police officers on routine traffic stops have dash mounted video cameras to back them up in court.

This is looking more and more like a course in sting operations as taught by Mondo the Magnificent like I mentioned the other week.

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