Charlie Powell packs for penitentiary
After several delays and a racially insulting dog and pony show, Judge G. Patrick Murphy finally sentenced ex-ESL Democratic boss Charlie Powell to 21 months in prison, a $2,500 fine and two years supervised release, for his role in orchestrating a conspiracy to buy East St. Louis votes (for amounts ranging from $5 to $10 per vote) in the November 2004 elections.
Powell’s attorney, Bruce Cook, played the race card in an attempt to gain leniency for Powell but, in the process, insulted Powell as well as all African Americans with his rhetoric.
After parading a host of Powell cronies as character witnesses, including a nun who referred mentally and physically deficient clients to Powell’s boarding house, Cook launched into a speech which invoked America’s legacy of slavery, as well as bastardized the Civil Rights Movement.
Projecting a historic photo of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and President Lyndon Johnson (taken during a debate of the Voting Rights Act), Cook said, “Your honor, this is about racism … about the suppressing of black people.”
Cook had the audacity to quote excerpts from the controversial speech of the Rev. Joseph Lowery, delivered during the recent funeral of Coretta Scott-King, alluding to Powell’s conviction as, somehow, a “weapon of misdirection.”
As appalling, nauseating and insulting as Cook’s remarks were (to all African Americans), most disgusting were the handful of Powell supporters who congratulated Cook on his remarks, not realizing that he’d just trivialized and pillaged their history in the name of defending a black, political pimp.
I could hear (rappers) Three 6 Mafia’s Academy Award-winning song “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” playing in my mind, thinking that this should be Charlie Powell’s theme song.
Charlie Powell pimped ESL voters (for a living), and now his attorney was attempting to pimp the legacy of MLK, Coretta Scott-King and America’s history of slavery in order to spare this political leach.
Powell was arrogant and brazen in promoting vote-buying and using his boarding house, not for altruistic reasons but to register multiple voters. He led his cronies to do likewise; several have already been sentenced.
Powell’s arrogance extended to his sentencing. He refused to speak, showing no contrition or remorse for his criminality and exploitation of the ESL community.
So, good riddance. Hopefully, this will be a wake-up call to the ESL community. As for Powell, even as he awaits his date to report for incarceration, he is busy promoting his son, Charles Powell III (“Little Charlie”) as a candidate to replace him as Precinct 9 committeeman in the March 21 elections.
Joe Kennedy groomed his sons to become president, governor and senator. Charlie Powell grooms his son to become … oh, well, you get the picture.
Let’s be clear. Dr. King, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and others did not struggle and die in order for their good works and memories to be hijacked by the likes of undeserving, ungrateful opportunists like Charlie Powell in some trivial political contest.
I only hope that when Powell returns to East Boogie (about 2 years from now) that ESL voters will not have become total amnesia victims.
Try laminating this column, as a reminder, and keep it near your voter registration card!
Email: jtingram_1960@yahoo.com.