David 'How Long Will It Take You To Pay' Ledbetter was again seen masquerading as the judiciaryTuesday, shaking down for their loose change ticketed drivers who were honest enough to take off work and show up at Cookeville's city bunker, 45 W. Broad St.

Meanwhile, across the road at police headquarters, The Putnam Pit's Systems Editor Michael Hodges,  working with Lt. Nathan Honeycutt and Office Manager Sheila  Holloway, went over old tickets and the city's computer data base and  found that as many as 12,000 parking tickets had either been issued as or changed to warnings, or were simply being ignored. Based on the information provided by the city's police department and without any way to verify the data because of City Attorney T. Michael O'Mara's $125-an-hour assault on public access to electronic information, The Pit is limited to the following report:

Among the names on the police list:

Circuit Court Clerk Lewis Coomer, 249 S. Elm, Cookeville: (44 warnings, 1 unpaid);

Putnam County Trustee Gary Maynard, 4788 Moss Rd., Baxter; ( 3 warnings, 29 unpaid, 10 paid);

Barbara Maynard, 4788 Moss Rd., Baxter; (5 warnings, 10 unpaid, 13 paid, 3 voided,

General Sessions Judge Nolan Goolsby,  353 Nash Ave., Cookeville; (3 warnings, 42 paid, 2 unpaid from 1994 linked to his licenses number but not his name, 1 void);

Arnold Lefkowitz, attorney; (3 warnings, 5 paid, 17 unpaid, 2 voided);

Craig Fickling, attorney; (1 warning, 1 paid, 53 unpaid)

Marla Williams, attorney, Rural Legal Services (17 void, 1 paid, 5 unpaid)

William Draper, attorney; (12 void)
 
 

"First Amendment, First Ashmendment. You've got to stop The Putnam Pit from making us look like a bunch of stooges, Mike.  Get Watson to make an ex parte contact with a federal magistrate, if you must. We've got money to burn, nyuk, nyuk. Lord knows, none of that investigation money at the police department is being used -- hell we know who's been doing everything; it's us! You'd better start denying The Pit records again if you have to before they find out who changed Lewey Coomer's 45 tickets. Judge Goolsby will be mad as hell when he finds out. He actually paid most of his outstanding tickets himself, except those two from several years ago, nyuk, nyuk, the poor dope. Find a way to shut The Pit down, Mike. Say the law requires a newspaper be nine inches wide, nyuk, nyuk, and they're only eight and a half. You're getting $125 an hour. Otherwise, we'll replace you with Shemp. Meet me in church after you drive them out of business. It's a good alibi, nyuk, nkuk."