Thursday, March 16, 2000
Candidate admits smoking pot
BY JANICE MORSE and STEVE KEMME
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HAMILTON — Butler County prosecutor candidate Robin Piper says he made a mistake on Memorial Day weekend 1981 when, as a college student, he accepted a marijuana cigarette that was being passed around at a park in the Lake Erie town of Put-in-Bay.
“Yes, there was a time when I admit I tried something I shouldn't have — unlike President Clinton,” Mr. Piper said, referring to the president's classic “I-didn't-inhale” denial of smoking pot.
“I made an immature, youthful indiscretion in being around people who had marijuana,” said Mr. Piper, “and the message I would want for young people to know is that, no matter how minor the law, you are responsible .... Don't give in to that temptation because it can cause you anguish later in life.”
Mr. Piper, 46, disputed a report Tuesday alleging he may have covered up the 19-year-old incident, in which he was cited for a minor misdemeanor and paid a $60 fine by mail.
In what both sides have predicted will be a nasty political campaign, Mr. Piper said his opponent took extreme measures to get the information: Prosecutor John F. Holcomb sent a county employee on a chartered flight to Put-in-Bay. Mr. Piper sees the revelation as an early strike in a “smear campaign,” timed to taint local Fraternal Order of Police endorsement interviews next month.
But Mr. Holcomb replied: “It's not a smear campaign. The question is, is it the truth? If it's the truth, and it smears him, then he ought to be smeared. He's a disgrace.”
At the time of the Put-in-Bay incident, Mr. Piper was a 27-year-old University of Dayton law student. He said he can't remember whether he disclosed the matter on his state bar application, which he filled out in 1980 or 1981. He also doesn't recall whether such a disclosure was required.
Mr. Piper said he wants to direct attention to more important issues in the race.
“I'm not getting into a dispute over a minor misdemeanor and the meaning of words in a document that was filled out 20 years ago,” he said. “...Why aren't we addressing Holcomb's vision of the prosecutor's office against my vision of the prosecutor's office?”
Mr. Piper began working as an assistant prosecutor under Mr. Holcomb in March 1983.
During the hiring process, Mr. Piper said he started to tell Mr. Holcomb about “a party weekend” in which he'd gotten into some trouble. But, as Mr. Piper recalls it, Mr. Holcomb seemed uninterested in hearing the details.
Mr. Holcomb, however, says if he had learned about the marijuana citation, “I would have thrown him through the window.” He said he didn't conduct a background check on Mr. Piper because he came with a good reference: Mr. Piper's father, who was a minister and a fellow Democrat.
“I figured if the preacher's telling me he's good, he must be,” Mr. Holcomb said. “That's the last time I'll ever do that.”
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