Atlantic City political circus getting national attention

SEATTLE, Washington - The most recent Atlantic City corruption sentences are so noteworthy, they got front-page treatment on the Drudge Report and a mention on KJR's Groz with Gas earlier this week.

A hooker and a Baptist minister having sex in a seedy motel room, where a camera was hidden in a clock radio. A videotape delivered to a radio talk show host by someone wearing oversized glasses, a fake beard and surgical gloves.

Even by the flamboyant corruption standards set by Atlantic City's government over the decades, this was one for the books.

Former City Council President Craig Callaway was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison for his role in setting up council rival Eugene Robinson with a prostitute in a motel room and secretly videotaping the encounter.

Some of the details of Callaway's nefarious plot:

In 2006, [Callaway] rented two rooms at the Bayview Motel, a nondescript lodging outside Atlantic City.

According to an FBI agent's court testimony in June, co-defendant Floyd Tally placed a camera hidden in a clock radio inside one of the rooms. A video recorder was set up in the adjacent room.

The agent said Callaway and his brothers, Ronald and David, paid a prostitute between $150 and $200 to lure Robinson to the motel and perform a sex act on him.

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Prosecutors say Callaway and the others confronted Robinson with the tape and told him it would be released to the media if he didn't resign.

The article mentioned some of the spectacular recent history of Atlantic City politicians:

As recently as 2006, one third of the nine council members were either in prison or on their way. One incumbent councilman is awaiting trial next year for his role in the Callaway sex video case.

In 1989 and 1990, four council members and the mayor were indicted in a bribery case. Only one councilman and the mayor, James Usry, were convicted.

The mayor before Usry, Michael Matthews, was a good childhood friend of my father before growing up, becoming mayor, and being sent to the federal hoosegow for 15 years after pleading guilty to extortion.

Craig Callaway also made headlines in 2002 when, at a city Democratic Committee meeting, his brother Jihad (yes, Jihad Callaway) pulled a knife on a supporter of one of Mr Callaway's opponents.