Anyway, this former Democrat Congressional candidate crashed and burned already a couple years ago, so law enforcement is already familiar with him.
Nice that the AP waited until the last paragraph of the story until identifying him. That comes in handy when other outlets pick up the truncated version of the story that completely omits his party.
His local paper, by the way, also omits the fact he's a Democrat. No mention of it here, either.
This is not the first time Dodds has disappeared, just like his party affiliation.
That and Dodds sounds like a complete closet case.CONCORD, N.H.—A former congressional candidate convicted of faking his disappearance after a car crash two years ago is in custody after his wife reported that he threw her to the floor. But the candidate's lawyer says the authorities are just blowing some marital stress out of proportion.
Prosecutor Thomas Velardi said Gary Dodds was arrested Tuesday morning near the Cutts Mansion, the apartment building he owns in Portsmouth and where he had his campaign office in 2006.
A judge revoked Dodds' bail from this year's conviction based on reports from Dodds' wife that he assaulted her and that he had been acting irrationally. Velardi said Dodds also had not been living consistently at his Rye home and recently was in Florida when he told the court he would be in New Orleans.
Cindy Dodds called police in Rye on Monday to report that she and Dodds had argued while on vacation in Florida and that her husband picked her up, thrown her to the ground, taken his bags and left. She said she was not hurt.
Mrs. Dodds said she called the police to get them to check whether Dodds had flown home.
According to the Rye police report, Mrs. Dodds also said her husband had moved out of their New Hampshire home about a month ago and that the Florida trip "was to try to get things straight."
Dodds was convicted in February of falsifying physical evidence, causing false public alarm and leaving the scene of an April 2006 traffic accident. He claimed he hit his head when he crashed into a guardrail in Dover, then nearly drowned in a river before collapsing for 27 hours until he was rescued. Prosecutors argued that Dodds staged the crash to attract attention to his flagging campaign and spent part of the 27 hours inside, soaking his feet in cold water to make his story believable.
He was sentenced in March to 20 days in jail and a year of home confinement but was free pending a ruling on his appeal.
One of Dodds' lawyers, Jay Nadeau, told The Associated Press that Dodds is being victimized.
"This is nothing more than marital stress that has been blown out of proportion," Nadeau said.
Contrast the media reticence to identify Dodds as a Democrat with the alacrity shown last week when Republican Vito Fossella was arrested.
Update: Thanks to Don Surber for the link and the most amusing headline: Name that party: When did you stop beating your wife edition
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