Grand Old Police Blotter: A Currin Affair Edition

It seems as if there's nearly a 100 percent correlation between working for Jesse Helms and criminality.

While I was on vacation this summer (it seems so long ago), Claude "The Fraud" Allen

pleaded guilty to theft on August 4, 2006. He shed tears during his sentencing hearing and apologized to his wife, family, and friends. Noting that Allen had been publicly humiliated by his arrest, and that he accepted responsibility for the crimes without trying to make excuses, the judge sentenced him to 18 months of "probation before judgment", which means that his record will be expunged of any crime if he completes his probation successfully.

But he'll always have a giant red and white target on his ass.

I love the excuse Clod's wife gave for her better half:

"In addition to the demanding household of four young children, we lived out of storage boxes in a friend's basement," Jannese Allen said. "Claude's 14-hour workdays became more demanding after the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina."

So Claude decided to do a little looting of his own. I guess I'm entitled to Allen's Mercedes, given all the medical appointments I've had to go to recently.

I came across Allen's guilty plea while reading about another criminal Helms protogee.

No, not Armstrong "Magic Fingers" Williams, the Bush Administration's other slapheaded whore.

It's spammin' Sammy Currin:

Former U.S. Attorney Sam Currin agreed Wednesday to plead guilty to federal charges that he conspired to launder $1.3 million that a computer spam artist made by inundating e-mail inboxes with stock-picking schemes.

Currin, 57, of Raleigh, used to be the one prosecuting federal crimes in Eastern North Carolina. Now he faces almost nine years in prison for his role in a scheme that prosecutors say netted him more than $240,000. Currin also plans to plead guilty to two counts of obstruction for failing to report $6,000 in income to the IRS and for lying to and failing to surrender documents to a federal grand jury, which was investigating another client's business merger.

Currin, who is well-known in conservative Republican circles, is a former protege of U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms. In 1981, he became Raleigh's top federal prosecutor, a post for which Helms nominated him. Currin held the job until 1987 and then went on to be a state Superior Court judge. In 1990, he left to run a law practice and become a state GOP leader.

As a state GOP leader, Currin's got all the right qualifications.