Light Of Day: Glenn Murphy Pleads Guilty, Could Serve Two Years

There's a lot of crap on the blogs, and there are plenty of crappy bloggers out there. On more than one occasion, I've been accused of publishing the former and being the latter.

As most of the readers of this site know, I spent three-plus years writing Taking Down Words, which earned me quite the unpleasant reputation on both sides of the aisle. You gotta have a hook, right?

In all, I wrote nearly 5,000 posts on TDW. Most of them were links to news stories I found interesting or my personal take on the issues du jour. But every once in a while, I'd hit on something that I was the first to report -- an unnoticed government report or contract or a tidbit that someone had passed along.

There are some bloggers out there who desperately seek credit for everything they do, whether it's original reporting or rehashed analysis. That's not my thing.

That being stated for the record, I was not unhappy to read this update in the Louisville Courier-Journal this afternoon:

The former chairman of the Clark County Republican Party pleaded guilty today to criminal deviate conduct as part of an agreement that could result in two years behind bars.

Glenn Murphy Jr. was arrested after authorities said he performed oral sex on a sleeping man following a July 28 party at a home in Jeffersonville. The plea agreement calls for a six-year sentence, with four years suspended.

Murphy is free on a $25,000 bond pending his June 30 sentencing.

Murphy, who was also chairman of the Young Republican National Federation, resigned from both posts when the allegations were made public in August.

The allegations initially came to light when they were posted on the personal blog of Indiana Democratic Party spokeswoman Jennifer Wagner.

The 22-year-old man who brought the complaint told investigators that he and Murphy were among a group of people who spent the night at a home after a party there, according to an affidavit by Detective Randy Burton of the Clark County sheriff's office.

Murphy slept on a top bunk while the man slept on a lower bunk, the affidavit said. The man said he awoke at 6:40 the next morning and found Murphy performing oral sex on him, according to the document.

The man told Burton that he pushed Murphy away and left.

Two days later, the affidavit said, the man met with Murphy and secretly taped a conversation during which Murphy apologized and begged him not to report the incident to police.

Most of what I wrote on TDW was neither original nor insightful; it was designed to poke and provoke those in power. But this story, as it jumped from my blog to national blogs to the mainstream media, made me proud that I was able to, in some small way, help bring a criminal -- someone who had allegedly done this repeatedly in the past with no repercussions -- to justice.

For what he did to his victim(s), Glenn Murphy deserves far more than two years behind bars. But if the alternative was another incident swept under the rug by his powerful buddies, then two years will have to do.

I'm not going to sit here at my kitchen table and tell you, as some bloggers would, that what I did was heroic, that I somehow bested the Fourth Estate to prove the amazing power of citizen journalists. (Heck, I actually have a piece of paper that says I can be a real journalist.)

I will, however, tell you that those years of fielding personal insults and slinging partisan mudballs feel a little more worth it because a bad guy is going to jail, and I played a tiny part in it.