Steve Nodine, a Man Who Knows Too Much?

The past couple of days have been spent reading comments posted at the end of the various news stories about Mobile County Commissioner Steve Nodine and his long list of abuses of the public trust in addition to his being, "the one and only" suspect in the murder of his mistress. Reading those comments, some of the best threads can found at http://www.wkrg.com and http://www.al.com, one gathers that Mobilians are asking themselves many questions. At least two of these seem to be why is Nodine still a county commissioner and how is it that he's not yet been arrested on a murder charge.

The D.A. in the county in which the murder took place says she is simply waiting to submit the case to a grand jury. Even so, some are saying they understood normal procedure to be for the suspect, provided enough probable cause existed, to be arrested, charged, arraigned, bonded out and then the D.A.'s office could chose to prosecute the case or hand it over to a grand jury.

Whatever the case, it's food for thought. Here you have the one and only suspect in a murder still sitting on the county commission and still walking around free. Either, there's not enough evidence to charge Mr. Nodine at present or the D.A. in Baldwin County want's the commissioner dead to rights before bringing it to trial. An indictment by a grand jury would avoid the appearance of any political motivation, impropriety or conflict of interest.

But in almost all criminal cases involving politicians it seems to come down to who knew what and when did they know it. The outgoing district attorney in Mobile County summed it up nicely in one of those articles when he suggested that somebody had to know something at some point. As one reads the voluminous pages of comment by outraged citizens of Mobile and Baldwin counties it's clear that they want to know how this man could have gotten away with loosing a county vehicle, how he was able to escape domestic violence charges, how he could get into a D.U.I. related wreck in New Orleans while attending a Saints game and it go unnoticed or how he procured more than 2000 pain pills without one peep about any of it appearing anywhere in the press or gossip pages. This writer certainly cares not to speculate.

However, plenty of people are speculating. There is speculation in particular as to how the Saints game D.U.I. thing could've been handled, a fantastic yarn indeed. It goes like this, Nodine was likely picked up at the scene by a couple of off duty Mobile police officers and then the truck he was driving was towed to a privately owned garage and repaired there. The repair bill being paid out of someone's pocket and never being submitted to the county for reimbursement. Indeed, when I called the Mobile county garage about two months ago to ask whether anyone there knew of a truck driven by commissioner Nodine being involved in a D.U.I wreck in New Orleans, I was told emphatically, no!

Some of these dime store detectives have even spun the most outrageous conspiracy theories since allegations that the CIA killed Kennedy. The theory goes that Nodine may never see the inside of a court room because nobody in power wants the commissioner telling all he knows under oath. They cite as the basis of that theory a case involving the one time head of the Alabama Traffic Safety Institute, Gordon Waller. Waller was suspected of abusing his authority by getting young men out of jail for sexual purposes, he was arrested, charged, booked and then he made bond, $50,000.00. But before he could stand trial Waller sold everything he owned and disappeared, one report said to the Philippines. He was ultimately convicted of the charges in absentia, and the $50,000.00 bond was paid off.

So, some of these people are saying that Nodine might be offered one of two options, he could flee the country, a' la Gordon Waller, or option number two they say, he'd be offered the "honorable" solution like the one Tom Hagen offered Frank Pentangeli in the Godfather Two. Remember when the consigliore, visited Pentangeli in prison and revealed that it wasn't Michael Corleone who tried to have him killed?

Tom Hagen, "When a plot against the Emperor failed... the plotters were always given a chance... to let their families keep their fortunes. Right?" Frank Pentangeli, "Yeah, but only the rich guys, Tom. The little guys got knocked off and all their estates went to the Emperors. Unless they went home and killed themselves, then nothing happened. And the families... the families were taken care of."
Tom Hagen, "That was a good break. A nice deal."