One of the biggest questions about Alvin Greene's cartoon candidacy for the Senate is how an unemployed veteran was able to pay the filing fee. Well, there is now uncontestable evidence that Greene could not possibly have paid it out of his own pocket.
Turns out that when Greene was charged with showing a porn site to a college student in November, he asked to be represented by a public defender.
For Greene to qualify for that representation, Richland County Assistant Solicitor Joanna McDuffie told Yahoo! News, he would have had to complete a questionnaire attesting to his income and assets.
"They ask, 'Do you have a checking account?,' and if you say yes, then you have to say how much is in it," McDuffie said. If Greene disclosed a bank account with more than $10,000 in savings, it's doubtful — to put it mildly — that he would have qualified for a public defender.
Greene claims he paid the filing fee from saved-up military pay. But he was discharged in August 2009, and hasn't worked since then. So either he lied to the court about his finances, or he's lying about where he got the money for the filing fee.
It was already inconceivable that Greene could have paid the filing fee on his own. Remember, this is a guy who had no Website, no campaign signs, no consultants. And according to WaPo, he only has $114 in his account, and only wrote one check--for the filing fee. And this guy could afford to pay a filing fee? Bullshit.
This revelation, however, is the closest thing to a smoking gun that we've found so far in this case. Here's a guy who hasn't worked since leaving the service, claims to be so poor he needs a public defender--and suddenly, he shows up with a check for $10,400? At the very least, he's guilty of perjury--which to my mind, is grounds to disendorse him even if he really did pay the filing fee out of his own pocket.
The state party said yesterday that it's powerless to strip Greene of its endorsement. But this revelation should be more than enough for Carol Fowler to give Greene an ultimatum--get out of the race before we throw you out.