Jim Hickey Should Be Exiled.

Jim Hickey

Last week, former Northampton County Administrator Jim Hickey entered a guilty plea to two counts in a federal corruption case aimed at Allentown Mayor Edwin "Fed Ed" Pawlowski and Reading's former Mayor, Vaughn Spencer. Under the deal, he could be sentenced to 18 months in the slammer. But I know Hickey, and he's a miserable bastard like me. He can do 18 months standing on his head while monkeys throw shit balls at him. He'd probably even like it and ask for more time. Jailing him is the worst thing the feds could do. He's a frickin' Druid, for Christ's sake! A Merlin! The last place to put him is in a prison where he will unite the Aryan Brotherhood, Crips and Nuestra Familia into an unholy alliance that will make the Penguin look like a boy scout.

Do what should Judge Sanchez do? A firing squad would be more appropriate, but bullets just go right through him. The best bet would be to exile him to a despised country like New Jersey, provided a steady supply of priests are on hand for the inevitable exorcisms that will be necessary for the rest of the population.

Hickey's very surname should tip you off. It's an Anglicization of the Gaelic ilchruthach, which means he comes from a long line of shape shifters. He could be Glenn Reibman one minute, Don Cunningham the next, then himself.

Hickey got his start in the US Navy, where he wrote safety manuals on how to avoid accidents on the high seas. While there, he met his wife Carla in a discussion about, of all things, Irish writer James Joyce.

I first got to know him when he was Glenn Reibman's Director of Administration. I'd pass by him on my way inside. He'd be outside by his Death Star, smoking seven cigarettes simultaneously with two cell phones going off nonstop and all kinds of wires coming out of his head.

He and I were on opposite sides during the debate over Reibman's $110 million bond. A group of five citizens that included yours truly challenged it in court, and won.

It was the first time in my life that anyone took me seriously.

Hickey's response? A $111 million bond. We fought that one, too, but lost.

During this debate, Hickey and I clashed constantly. In his Jim Hickey Belongs in the Hall of Fame column, The Morning Call's Bill White mentions one profanity-laced tirade that Hickey directed at me in the hallway outside a Council meeting. In fact, Council stopped the meeting so they could listen to it.

Me: I'll never join you!
Hickey: If you only knew the power of the Dark Side. Ron Angle never told you what happened to your father.
Me: He told me enough! He told me you killed him!
Hickey: No. I am your father.
Me: No...no. That's not true. That's impossible!
Hickey: Search your feelings, you know it to be true!
Me: Noooo! Nooooo!

Then he cut off my arm and threw me off the courthouse roof, which explains why the parking lot needed work.

After one particularly nasty session, I gut a call from him early one morning. He was fishing, and thought of me for some reason.

Maybe he was cleaning his catch.

But he and I became friends.

As I got to know him better, I learned that Hickey is very loyal to his friends, even when it hurts him. One of those friends was Mike Fleck. I know him to be honest, so much so that he turned down two bribes while in the public arena. He is also brutally honest with people. One day he told me, "I think I've finally gone too far."

"Why?"

"I just told Judge Moran to go fuck himself."

Gotta' agree there, but that's Jim. He likes to talk badass, which is probably why the feds were so hot for him.

But the truth is completely different. 

He and his wife Carla have raised three fine sons, which really is the ultimate achievement. He goes to their football games, even the ones in Canada.

Newspapers throughout the state should have pooled resources to contribute to his defense, if only because a trial would have resulted in a supply of colorful quotes that could be used until the next century. But here in America, justice is available only to those with money or a good lawyer. Hickey has no money. He spent it all on campaign contributions. He was lucky enough to get a good lawyer. But the feds knew it and were trying to disqualify him.

He is a good man,and I am honored to call him my friend.