Resident responds to allegations
To the editor:
Will someone please slip Ray Judah a sedative and send him to bed. He’s obviously delirious.
Lee County Circuit Court Clerk Charlie Green and I have conspired against him, he says. Charlie, who was raised beside Estero Bay on our island doesn’t understand the environment, he says. Everything I wrote as a News-Press reporter for 32 years was fabricated, he says.
And all because Charlie’s auditors had the audacity to report that the county’s land purchases over the years paid two and even three times what property was worth. When Ray attacked him for that, I defended Charlie.
Let me be clear: Charlie Green and I have never conspired on anything other than perhaps plotting to snag a few snook at his dad’s shrimp dock when we were kids.
As for his claims that as a reporter I made “sweeping accusations without a shred of truth,” all I can say is Mr. Judah obviously has been feeding at the public trough too long. Out in the real world he’d find that in the private sector you don’t do that for long without being discovered and tossed, especially in newspapers. I was at The News-Press for 32 years and retired by my own decision. Anyone who believes you can get away with the things he accused me of while working for scores of editors in a newsroom in the world’s biggest newspaper chain will surely want to buy that bridge to Brooklyn. It just doesn’t happen.
Ray needs a shot of reality and a good sedative before he accuses Charlie and I of knocking off Jimmy Hoffa.
Lee Melsek
Fort Myers Beach