Reynolds ‘done w/ America?’ I thought Chicago was “done” w/ Mel long ago

One-time member of Congress from Chicago Mel Reynolds, the man who more than two decades ago made the phrases “peach panties” and “did I win the Lotto?” words worth snickering at, has added a new one to the lexicon of ridiculous things spoken by political people.

REYNOLDS: From Congress to incarceration

Reynolds, who back in 1995 was found guilty of having sex with an underage girl, was sentenced to prison this week on charges he went four years without filing income tax returns.

HIS REACTION TO getting a six-month prison term?

“I’m done with America,” he said, even though he admitted his sentence was far less than the just-over two years of prison time prosecutors sought, and that it is assured he’ll be free before year’s end.

Reynolds says that after he serves his time and is released, he plans to leave this country and live the rest of his life in an African nation. Possibly South Africa, where it turns out one of his daughters has resided for several years.

Reynolds, in talking with reporter-type people following his sentencing at the Dirksen Building federal courthouse, made it clear he thinks he’s the one being victimized – just another black man being constantly hounded by law enforcement and being sent off to prison just because he’s tried to make something of his life aside from menial labor.

NOW I DON’T doubt that there are elements of our society that do seek to keep black people from accomplishing much; or making any success they do achieve as difficult to do so as possible.

There may even be some who are taking a perverse pleasure at the thought that Reynolds – who served two terms in the House of Representatives from Chicago’s far South Side and surrounding suburbs in the early-to-mid-1990s – is now on his third term of incarceration.

But I can’t help but think that most people who heard of Reynolds’ fate on Thursday got their snicker from what they perceive as the man’s awfully-high perception of his self-importance.

Reynolds is “done with America?” I think it’s more accurate to say that America, particularly that segment of the nation that is Chicago, is “done” with Mel. To the point where most of us haven’t thought about him in ages – and may have even been a little shocked to learn the man is still around.

I SUSPECT WE’LL get over the idea of a Mel-less society, particularly since even the people who were supposed to be his strongest supporters were never that thrilled with the man.

Reynolds was a product of the 1992 election cycle that gave us Bill Clinton as president. There also was Gus Savage in Congress, and his oft-outspoken ways that provoked the sensibilities of non-black people (to be honest, he didn’t care what they thought) created a gap for a challenger.

Which was Mel, a Mississippi-born and Chicago-raised man who got a chance to attend Harvard University and also was a Rhodes Scholar.

I remember that many black people were apathetic about Reynolds, largely because of the perception that Mel thought he was better than everybody else. Which created conditions that – when he got into legal troubles – too many were more than willing to laugh at him and enjoy his misery.

AS FAR AS an Africa-residing Reynolds is concerned, my reaction is to wonder which nation would actually accept him. One of Reynolds’ more recent predicaments was an arrest in Zimbabwe – which makes me think that no matter where he goes, he’s going to manage to tick people off and be harassed by the local officials.

Some people just bring out the worst.

Although there may well be one other bit of significance to the Mel Reynolds saga. The man who once had the whole wide world at his grasp will have lost it all and wind up living off of his daughter.

For his sake, he’d better stay on her good side, since he might not have any other friends left.

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He’s in hiding because he knows too much, or so Mel Reynolds says

I don’t doubt that there’s a stink surrounding the story of Mel Reynolds, the one-time member of Congress who recently got deported from Zimbabwe after managing to offend the government of that African nation.

REYNOLDS: The man who knows too much?

Then again, being on the bad side of Robert Mugabe doesn’t take much to achieve. That man seems to have a problem with anyone who won’t kowtow to him.

NOT THAT THIS fact makes me feel much in the way of sympathy, since he seems determined to continue his current saga in life.

For it seems that when Zimbabwe officials transported him from the jail where he had spent six days to their airport to get him out of the country, he didn’t return to his native United States.

He went to nearby South Africa – a nation that decades ago wouldn’t have let him come anywhere nearby. But now, is the place where he claims to be in hiding because he fears that a “secret Zimbabwean death squad” is trying to hunt him down. He’s marked for assassination, or so he says.

Although I wonder just how deep in hiding could he be if both WLS-TV AND the Associated Press managed to track him down by telephone for interviews in which he told us his life’s latest sob story.

REYNOLDS, WHOSE CRIMINAL record in this country involves both state charges related to being sexually involved with underage girls and federal charges related to his tax returns, has turned himself into a self-described consultant who was helping U.S. business interests to make connections in African nations.

Which is why he supposedly was in Zimbabwe since back in November.

He now says that his experiences have caused him to learn of U.S. officials, including some from our very own Chicago, who are skirting their way around the law – particularly since Mugabe doesn’t have the best record on international issues.

Reynolds now wants us to believe that the reason he got hit with criminal charges of pornography possession in Zimbabwe is because he was threatening to expose those people.

WHICH COULD COST business and government officials serious money!

Hence, the “death squads” that would turn Mel into a corpse. It all sounds so far over the top – almost like something out of a James Bond film (at least one from the Sean Connery era, the rest get just a bit too lame to pay much attention to).

Or maybe it’s more like something from a “Get Smart” episode – it sounds more like a Maxwell Smart caper than anything else, on account of all its inanity.

In fact, about the only reason I give it any credence is the fact that the pornography possession charge seemed too trumped up – and officials in Zimbabwe were way too eager to dismiss it.

REYNOLDS WAS CHARGED with a visa violation (it had expired) that was the reason he ultimately got deported. The pornography charge supposedly was dismissed because police did not get the consent of higher-ranking authorities before making the arrest.

Which may sound reasonable to someone whose legal sensibilities are U.S.-oriented. Although since when Zimbabwe officials care about such sensibilities is the real question.

A pornography arrest was just the way to draw attention to a U.S. political official whose lingering reputation was of getting aroused by the 16-year-old in peach-colored panties.

Reynolds isn’t wrong when he says that they used the most effective weapon they could come up with to discredit anything he might have to say about business interests in African nations. He may even be truthful in his statement to WLS-TV that he essentially “bribed” Zimbabwe officials to deport – rather than incarcerate – him.

ALTHOUGH EVEN TAKING that into account, it just seems like Mel Reynolds has a knack for walking into gaffes. And why his threats to expose what he knows about corruption (a press conference to be done while in hiding, he says) likely won’t be taken seriously.

Which may well be why the Rhodes Scholar-turned-Congressman-turned-inmate never was able to live up to the promise he showed early in life.

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EXTRA: He’s coming back home! But do we really want Mel to return?

It would seem that one-time Congressman Mel Reynolds is NOT some form of international pornographer.

He’s just a guy who overstayed his visa, and is about to get kicked out of the country. Zimbabwe, that is.

FOR IT SEEMS that the one-time representative from the Far South Side and surrounding suburbs who got caught using the camera on his personal phone to take pictures of women in compromising pictures is not going to face a criminal charge on that, after all.

A judge in Harare dismissed that charge of pornography possession – which is a felony in Zimbabwe.

But Reynolds did plead guilty to a charge that he was in Zimbabwe on an expired visa (he’d been there since November, theoretically so that he could make contacts to benefit U.S. corporate interests that want to do business in Africa).

So for that, a judge ordered Reynolds to be deported.

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE reported Friday that attorneys for Reynolds say they expect him to return to the United States next week, although they’re not sure if he will wind up back in Chicago proper (he had been living in the Bronzeville neighborhood in recent years).

Although the part that most intrigued me was the claim by the hotel manager to the Tribune newspaper that they had nothing to do with Reynolds’ arrest. He had something like a $24,000 hotel bill he had run up. Who knows if they’ll ever get the money?

I still wonder if this was more about Reynolds offending some local persona, and then falling into a trap of his own making by having all those girls up to his hotel room so he could try making himself a personal film.

All of which makes this week’s Reynolds saga -- which was already so overloaded with tacky incidents -- a self-inflicted wound!

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Reynolds, the one-time “lotto” winner, faces sex-related charge in Africa

No, one-time member of Congress Mel Reynolds never actually won the Illinois lottery, or any other game of chance.

REYNOLDS: Won't go away!

It’s a reference to Reynolds’ alleged response (which came out during his criminal trial on charges that he had sexual relations with an underage girl) to the idea of getting involved with a Catholic school girl.

WHICH CREATES THE image in all of our minds of an adult male who can’t keep his hands off the young girls. An image that Reynolds seems to have reinforced this week with his arrest in Zimbabwe.

It seems that Reynolds, who represented the Far South Side and surrounding suburbs in Congress from 1993-95, got himself arrested in Harare. Local newspapers reported that Reynolds brought models and other women to his hotel room, where he used his camera to take pictures and video of them.

Technically, he has run up a hotel bill totaling the equivalent of $24,000 since arriving in Zimbabwe back in November. And his visa wasn’t authorized for such a lengthy visit.

But the charge that will draw the international attention will be the pornography possession charge – which is particularly harsh in Zimbabwe because the laws prohibit any kind of material that could be construed as sexually explicit.

FOR ALL I know, this very weblog has published things that could be construed as pornographic – under the standard that is being used in this particular case. Where it is questionable as to how consistently it is enforced by local officials.

A part of me wonders if local officials think Reynolds is trying to get out of paying his hotel bill, and they turned him in to ensure that he coughs up some cash.

A part of me also expects that he’ll spend a couple of days in a jail cell in Zimbabwe, before ultimately being deported from the country.

So much for the idea that he’s some sort of U.S. business executive who is advising other officials in this country about how to make money in Zimbabwe. He’s now going to be the U.S. sex offender who used an African sojourn as an excuse to take dirty pictures.

THE SAD PART of all this is that Reynolds seems to walk right into these incidents. You’d think he’d realize he’s in a life situation where his every miscue is going to get international attention.

We may not really care much about what happens to the one-tie Oxford-educated man who rose to a brief stint in Congress before his downfall in Chicago. But we are the type of people who will gladly use his gaffes to give ourselves a cheap giggle.

Which is what this latest story is about.

Personally, I think the story in and of itself is cheap, and that Reynolds wasn’t a significant enough figure (barely one term in Congress, would we care as much if it were Michael P. Flanagan who got arrested for something?) to deserve to last in our memory so long.

EXCEPT THAT IT allows us to recall his trial in Cook County Circuit Court, where the most interesting aspect was that the girl in question tried to refuse to answer questions about her involvement with Reynolds – which led the state’s attorney’s office to play legal hardball and have her put in jail for a few days for contempt of court; before she finally admitted what the Congressman did to her when she was younger.

There also are those of us of a certain generation who will always get a giggle from the phrase “Peach panties.”

All of which is why it becomes impossible for Reynolds’ memory to wither away into nothingness – which is what we really wish were possible.

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