Memphis mayor blasts plot to derail re-election

updated 8:42 p.m. ET June 25, 2007

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Mayor Willie Herenton stepped before television cameras to announce he had made a startling discovery: Rich, white businessmen were plotting to derail his re-election by videotaping him having sex with a strip club waitress.

The revelation earlier this month added a racial dimension to Herenton's campaign for a fifth term that would make him the longest-serving mayor in Memphis history.

Herenton, the city's first elected black mayor, stared into the cameras, and issued a warning for the "snakes" conspiring against him.

"One snake who's been crawling in the grass finally raised his head," the mayor said at a June 14 news conference. "But I want you to know that there's another snake in our midst ... and I'm going to put him on notice.

"When he raises his head ...," Herenton said, pausing with a slow smile. "You complete the rest of it."

No names given
It was an edgy performance, even for Herenton, a 6-foot-6 former boxer with a taste for political combat and a self-assuredness that drives his critics to distraction. He offered no evidence and refused to name the "wealthy business leaders" he said were behind the plot.

"He's always been very aggressive, but in this case, it did look like he was grasping for a reason to be a victim," said Larry Moore, a University of Memphis professor and political consultant.

The conspiracy claims came from Gwendolyn D. Smith, a 29-year-old former waitress who said she was offered $150,000 to seduce the 67-year-old mayor and videotape their sexual encounter.

Smith, who is also black, made the allegations in a letter to the state prosecutor in Memphis. She said her former lawyer, Richard Fields, recruited her for the plot and promised she would be paid by unnamed "benefactors." She also accused Fields of sexually assaulting her.

‘Strange story’
Fields, who is white, is a well-known civil-rights lawyer in Memphis. He was once married to Smith's cousin and represented Smith in 2004 when she pleaded guilty to felony charges of forgery.

He denied Smith's allegations and described her as a con artist and drug abuser. "She's desperate for money," he said. "She thinks the mayor or somebody will pay her money."

A few days after Herenton's news conference, Smith was back in jail in Nashville for failing a drug test while on probation.

"It's a strange story," said political scientist Marcus Pohlmann of Rhodes College of Memphis. "It's almost too strange to be taken seriously unless there's a paper trail, and maybe there is."

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