A former Virginia mayor, known as “the Boss Hogg of Appalachia,” is expected to plead guilty Tuesday to more than 200 charges stemming from a scheme that included wooing voters with pork rinds, cigarettes and beer.
According to the indictment, the bribes were part of Ben Ellis Cooper’s plan to take over Appalachia, a coal-mining town in Southwest Virginia, and use the police department to carry out vendettas against his enemies.
A 300-page indictment, filed in March in Wise County Circuit Court, states that Mr. Cooper and 13 of his cronies rigged the 2004 election by stealing mail, forging absentee ballots and coercing people in the voting booth.
Once elected, the indictment states, Mr. Cooper oversaw a police department that stole drug money and personal items and protected a local drug trafficker.
The ongoing case has generated colorful headlines, and branded Mr. Cooper with the Boss Hogg title, a throwback to the crooked county commissioner in the television series “The Dukes of Hazzard.”
The Roanoke Times reported that it was such a harebrained plan that Mr. Cooper’s defense attorney likened its masterminds to Larry, Curly and Moe of “The Three Stooges.”
The makeshift gang was made up of a hodgepodge of prominent townspeople.
There was a mail carrier, a drug dealer, shady cops and six members of a family that included guys dubbed “Dude” and “Boogie.”
The saga began in 2004, when Mr. Cooper is said to have given voters cigarettes, beer and pork rinds if they agreed to sign applications for absentee ballots.
Mr. Cooper’s crew then delivered the signed applications, many filled out in red ink, to the local registrar, whose office approved most of the applications and mailed voters the ballots.
Before the ballots reached voters, Mr. Cooper’s team snagged them from the post office and from private mailboxes.
Behind closed doors, the team cast votes for Mr. Cooper and his two running mates — Owen Anderson Sharrett III and Eddie Gollaway. Mr. Gollaway has not been charged in the case; Mr. Sharrett is accused of taking part in the scheme.
“There are close to 60 applications that became suspect for reasons such as the voter never saw the application and the application is a complete forgery,” special prosecutor Timothy McAfee told The Washington Times.
On Election Day, voters were shuttled to polling places, told for whom to vote and, on many occasions, had the voting-machine lever pulled for them.
Mr. Cooper’s slate won seats on the Town Council. Mr. Cooper was named mayor, a post that gave him oversight of the police department. He immediately hired Ben Surber, also charged in the election-fraud scheme, as police chief.
Mr. Cooper used the department to settle personal grudges. Money and personal items were stolen from people’s homes.
“They would go into a drug dealer’s house — take money, drugs and property and nothing would happen to them,” Mr. McAfee said.
The scheme began to unravel in late 2004, when residents from a low-income apartment complex complained to the town about being offered booze, tobacco and deep-fried pork skins for their votes.
“As we began looking into it, it became obvious what was going on,” Mr. McAfee said.
In October, a jury convicted Don Estridge, a mail carrier, for stealing ballots along his route.
Earlier this month, Walter Mike Baber, a police officer hired by Mr. Cooper, was convicted of embezzlement for taking a television and stereo from the home of a woman selling crack cocaine, Mr. McAfee said.
Others, including Mr. Surber, are expected to plead guilty before the end of the year.
Today, many of those living in the economically depressed area are hoping to move on.
“Most residents of the county are hopeful that this is a chapter behind them,” Mr. McAfee said.
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