Hide Your Daughters

What with all the attention given to Bill Clinton's midnight pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, it's gone nearly unmentioned that Clinton simultaneously set free one Melvin J. Reynolds of Chicago, Illinois -- for "humanitarian" reasons, according to various (and oddly anonymous) defenders of the move.

Reynolds, you may or may not recall, is the former congressman convicted in 1997 on multiple federal charges of bank fraud, wire fraud, false statements to the Federal Election Commission, threatening a witness, perjury, and obstruction of justice. Must have been the perjury and obstruction parts that tugged at Clinton's heartstrings. Or maybe it was a secret handshake thing between two former Rhodes scholars. Or maybe it was the fact that Reynolds has never publicly repented or even acknowledged his crimes, preferring instead to blame his prison sentence on (racist) persecution by federal investigators.

Or maybe it was . . . well, that other business. In 1995, an obstinately defiant Reynolds was sentenced to an Illinois state prison term for solicitation of child pornography, criminal sexual assault, aggravated criminal sexual abuse, and obstruction of justice. The sex charges involved Reynolds's affair with a 16-year-old campaign volunteer -- and a tape-recorded phone conversation in which the congressman, believing that he'd arranged an encounter with a 15-year-old Catholic high school student, uttered the immortal words: "Did I win the Lotto?!?"

Last week, as is required of such creatures by Illinois state law, Melvin J. Reynolds reported to the Chicago Police Department and submitted a photo ID. As a service to its readers in that fair city, THE SCRAPBOOK reproduces the resulting entry on the Police Department's website database of "registered sex offenders."

Chicago Police Department Registered Sex Offender Profile

Generated on 2/8/01 at 4:32:03 PM