Mudslinging starts in 51st District race

House of Delegates candidate Rich Anderson sent out a mailer Friday about Del. Paul F. Nichols being arrested in North Carolina in 2006, but the incumbent noted that the campaign material leaves out the fact that the charges were dismissed.

The two-sided GOP direct mail piece, sent to about 15,000 homes in northeastern Prince William County, includes color images of police cars and calls Anderson's Democratic opponent in the 51st district race a "different kind of 'slugger.'"

It has served to fire up a race that initially seemed as if it would be a calm contest between affable and cordial rivals.

"In 2006, Paul Nichols and a friend were stopped by police for suspicion of DWI. … Fifty-one minutes later, an ambulance had been called to the scene, and Nichols had been arrested for 'resist, delay, obstruct' and 'assault on a law enforcement official,'" the mailing says.

It also features a scanned copy of the Lake Ridge lawyer's arrest record from the April 27, 2006, incident.

Anderson campaign manager Reece Collins noted that an ambulance was called in after police were dispatched to the scene just after 11:30 p.m. and that the arrest record says Nichols used his hands as weapons.

"The voters deserve to know this," Collins said.

Nichols confirmed that paramedics were called to the scene, but he said they came to help him. His nose had been bloodied and possibly broken.

This is what he said really happened:

He was on a golf trip in the Outer Banks with several friends, and the group was returning from a dinner outing.

He was a passenger in the second car of two cars, and the first car was pulled over by a Southern Shores, N.C., police officer. As a lawyer, Nichols wanted to see what was going on, so he hopped out of the car he was in.

He tried to talk to the officer who had pulled over his friends' vehicle when another officer confronted him.

That policeman, identified on the arrest record as Lucius Earle Thompson VI, then grabbed him and threw him down, Nichols said. His head struck the ground, causing a nosebleed.

Nichols said he didn't touch the officer, but he was arrested anyway. His friend in the first car wasn't charged after passing field sobriety tests.

"I was the victim," Nichols said.

He said by the time of the court date in August 2006, Thompson was no longer on the police force and didn't show up for the proceedings.

A judge dismissed the charges, and Nichols said he recently had the record expunged.

But apparently Anderson's campaign was able to get the relevant documents while they were still available to the public. Collins said he and the staff of the Republican challenger found the information through a search of public records.

Collins confirmed that the charges were dismissed. But he said that the incident is significant and that Nichols "should have to answer to the public" for it.

After news of the mailing got out Friday, Nichols phoned his 2007 opponent, Faisal Gill. Gill confirmed that he knew about the Outer Banks situation then, Nichols said, and felt it would be unfair to use in a political cam-paign.

"Now I know what a humble person he was," Nichols said of the Republican.

Gill could not be reached Saturday to comment.

In addition, Nichols said his friend, Curtis Jordan, can corroborate his story. Jordan, who played for the Washington Redskins from 1981 to 1986, was on the trip, and has offered to publicly back Nichols in light of Anderson's mailer.

"He knows I never raised my hand to the police officer," Nichols said.

Jordan could not be reached Saturday.

Mainly, Nichols said that the mailing is misleading, and he noted that he could have been disbarred for the kind of conduct Anderson describes.

The campaign literature makes it sound like he was drinking and driving and then fighting with law enforcement, he said.

"I wasn't even driving," Nichols said. "I was a passenger in a different vehicle."

And on top of that, he said, Anderson recklessly released a lot of his personal information.

"Everything is on display in his mailing," Nichols said.

The image of the arrest record, for example, shows Nichols' Social Security number.

So while campaigning and responding to the mailer Saturday, the 56-year-old businessman was canceling credit cards and trying to make sure his identity hadn't been stolen, Nichols' campaign manger Kyle Gott said.

In fact, Nichols said, Anderson "may have committed a crime by having mailed this."

Collins, however, said that the arrest record was fair game because it was a public document.

And about whether the incident was later expunged, he said, "Our position is that that's a legal matter."

The fact remains, Collins said, that Nichols was arrested on charges of assaulting a man responsible for protecting the public.

Gott noted Saturday that most everyone who meets Anderson, a 30-year Air Force veteran, calls him a nice guy.

They may not say that anymore, though, Gott said.

And his boss pointed out that Friday's turn of events -- and subsequent comments on blogs such as Black Velvet Bruce Li -- has resulted in a discussion not about policy but about politics.

"We're not talking about the issues," Nichols said. "We're talking about a personal attack with nothing behind it."

Staff writer Jonathan Hunley can be reached at 703-369-5738.