By Rob Holbert Managing Editor

When I was in college, Fat Eddie Smith pointed a pistol at my head.

I was sitting in my convertible VW Bug at the Old Shell entrance of Spring Hill College when I heard a car pull up on my right and someone saying my name. I looked over, and there was Eddie with an automatic pistol aimed right at my skull, not 10 feet away. He laughed like a maniac, stomped the gas on his shiny new Beemer and peeled off down Old Shell like a maniac. I went home and changed my shorts.

That was 20 years ago when Fat Eddie – that’s what we always called him behind his back – was just the idiot friend one of my frat brothers brought around for his outrageous shock value – a gorilla-like oaf from a rich local family who seemed to have few boundaries. We all laughed watching Eddie kick dorm room doors off their hinges or terrifying the poor dorks at the end of the hall with his redneck antics. I wish I’d have known back then that Eddie would become one of Mobile’s “Most Wanted.” I’d have gotten his autograph.

Some of you may be scratching your heads thinking, “Who’s this Fat Eddie? Is he that obese dude who sells yellow wood? Why’s Holbert picking on the Yella Fella? What a jerk!” No, I’m not talking about the fat guy selling wood, although his commercials are criminally bad. I’m talking about Eddie Smith IV, the subject of countless news stories over the past few months and yet the latest reason to wonder exactly what in the world goes on in our local legal system.

If you’re not up on the Eddie Smith saga, I’ll give it to you in a nutshell. But if you want the whole scoop, go online and read the excellent series of articles Eddie Curran put together in the Press-Register in March. The microscope he put on Fat Eddie is really what got this thing where it is today. Without Curran’s stories, I doubt the local legal eagles would have ever done enough to make Eddie Smith even mildly uncomfortable.

As Curran detailed, over the years, Smith has racked up an extensive wrap sheet, which includes all manner of fiscal mayhem and physically harassing a female Radio Shack employee. Among other things, Curran’s story detailed Smith’s use of an unregistered non-profit organization to finance a lavish lifestyle that included a multi-million-dollar mansion on Fowl River and a very expensive racing boat decorated with the Hooter’s logo. Basically, Curran’s story painted a picture of a flamboyant flim-flam man who seems to believe he is above the law.

Small wonder, too, since Smith seemed to benefit from some pretty lenient penalties when he did get caught stepping over the line. Actions that would probably land you or me in the clink for at least a reasonable stay got Smith a slap on his chunky wrist. In fact, after all the things Fat Eddie had done, it took the Press-Register publishing them to get anyone to actually toss him in the can. Finally Circuit Court Judge Charlie Graddick “got tough” with Eddie and ordered him to serve 90 days for violating the terms of his probation for groping the Radio Shack gal.

Seems Eddie had been going big game hunting all over the country while he was supposed to be serving his harrowing 90 days of home confinement in his multi-million-dollar home. Since Curran’s story exposed the fact that Fat Eddie was out hunting instead of twiddling his thumbs in his mansion, Graddick woke up and sent him to jail.

But then they let Eddie out.

You see it seems Eddie has some kind of problem with his foot. It’s infected or bloated or some other such disgusting thing, and the second he went to jail, he started complaining about it. So after about a month in jail, he was released to seek medical treatment in New Orleans. Ostensibly, this was so the taxpayers wouldn’t have to foot the bill to cut Eddie’s foot off or keep him from dying. Fat Eddie was sent back to the mansion with one of those electronic ankle bracelets to serve out the rest of his 90 days.

I remember thinking when I saw the story about Eddie being released that it wouldn’t be very long before we found out Eddie had left town. Low and behold, it wasn’t very long before we found out Eddie left town. This past week officials reported that Smith and his mother have apparently left the country, going God-knows-where. Big surprise.

Didn’t anybody think to make Smith surrender his passport at least? After all, this is the same guy who was leaving the state while on home detention. Maybe, just maybe, he might try to leave the country to avoid all the trouble heading his way. Perhaps they just figured he’d sit around The Sonneborn home eating Funions for three months.

Now he’s on the lam with a string of criminal charges trailing him and judgments of more than $1 million against him for forging insurance checks. (Mark my words, he’ll fake his death very soon. He’ll probably kill Kevin Smith of “Clerks” fame and use him as a body double.)

And while all of this is sort of amusing in a larger-than-life way, and I would like to make some extra cash printing, “Limp Eddie, Limp!” T-shirts, I am left wondering what in the world everyone involved with Eddie Smith’s punishment was thinking. It’s almost like they wanted him to get away.

If anyone screamed “flight risk” it was Eddie Smith. No doubt there are people down at the jailhouse who’ve done far less than Fat Eddie and served their time, health problems or no. If having an infected foot is a get-out-of-jail-free card, well, we’d all better start watching out for people with limps.

The people who gave Eddie Smith a free ride for so long and then didn’t hold his infected foot to the fire when they should have ought be embarrassed by this ridiculous saga. The public should take note of the treatment some people get versus the punishment meted out to the rest of us slobs.

I suppose if there’s a moral to this story, it’s that it pays to be connected in Mobile – and to have an infected foot.

Rob Holbert is Lagniappe managing editor. Contact him at rholbert@lagniappemobile.com.

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