Friday Morning – The Famous and the Infamous

A bizarre situation occurred in the law enforcement universe on Wednesday in Arapahoe County, Colorado (Denver suburbs).  The county's former sheriff who retired in 2002, Patrick J. Sullivan was a much honored and respected law officer who was once named Sheriff of the Year by the National Sheriff's Association and another time given a hero's accolade after saving the lives of two deputies at a shoot-out situation in a daring and dramatic action.

It was disclosed Wednesday that Sullivan had been arrested after a month-long investigation and charged with distribution of methamphetamines in exchange for sex from other men.  The investigation is continuing as the law agencies track down where Sullivan was getting his goods and who else was involved in the sales operations.

Disgraced former-sheriff Sullivan
faces the judge at Wednesday's hearing.  (AP)

Appearing at an arraignment Wednesday, a judge set Sullivan's bail at a half-million dollars and remanded him to the county jail that ironically was named after him, the Patrick Sullivan Detention Center.  He faces the possibility of more charges against him.  The Associated Press has a concise report on the arrest HERE.

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A couple other footnotes of cultural history came across the wires this week, both involving infamous daughters.  It was announced that Josef Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva died a little over a week ago in Wisconsin at age 85.  She plunged onto the world stage back in 1966 when she traveled to India and bolted to the U. S. embassy there asking for asylum.  Arriving in New York in 1967, the author and literary scholar said,  “I have come here to seek the self-expression that has been denied me for so long in Russia.”

She said she had come to doubt the communism she was taught growing up and believed there weren’t capitalists or communists, just good and bad human beings. She had also found religion and believed “it was impossible to exist without God in one’s heart.”  (Quoted from Washington Post obituary HERE.)  She changed her name to Lana Peters in order to assimilate better into American life, but she was continuously known and referred to as "Stalin's daughter."

The other daughter who passed away this week was the so-called "secret love-child" of Clark Gable, Judy Lewis who was 76 when she lost her battle with lymphoma Friday.  She was raised by her mother actress Loretta Young, who had convinced the public that she had adopted the girl who was conceived during production of the movie "The Call of the Wild" in 1935.  At the time, bastardy was such a strong social taboo that disclosure of her parentage would have destroyed the careers of both actors.

Clark Gable and Loretta Young in "Call of the Wild"

The secret was even kept from Lewis until her mother shared her secret with her in 1966.  The story was still kept from the public who only learned of it after Young's memoirs were published following her death in 2000.  The New York Times published a more detailed review of the strange story in Lewis' obituary HERE.

We need to get started with our equipment check now.  I'll get some more coffee going before we meet back in the day room.

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