Jun 3, 2009 11:26 pm US/Eastern
Helen Holton Tells Her Side To WJZ's Vic Carter
BALTIMORE (WJZ) ―
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City Councilwoman Helen Holton feared her political career was over and, worse, she could have gone to jail.
CBS
City Councilwoman Helen Holton feared her political career was over and, worse, she could have gone to jail. Now she is all but free of a legal battle after a judge threw out all charges against her.
Vic Carter sat down with her as she talked candidly for the first time about these excruciating last six months.
"In America, I always believed that people were innocent until proven guilty," Holton said.
She battled the fight of her life. The Baltimore City councilwoman was charged with bribery and perjury as part of a probe into corruption at City Hall.
"I have done nothing wrong," she said. "I was a casualty. I think I was a mishap that was like, `Oh, look at what we found. We can make something of nothing.'"
Now for the first time since being cleared of all charges, Helen Holton is talking exclusively with
WJZ.
"I can't tell you why [this happened]. God puts us in situations that are not always comfortable," she said. "This drained on me."
For five full months, fear consumed every waking moment.
"There were days when I had to walk into City Hall [and] just the very thought of walking into that building, it took everything in me to pull myself together," she said. "Coming in here at the end of the day was relief I made it through another day. What I'm facing is people who don't know me, who watch the news and read the papers and think, `Oh, yeah, she's guilty. She did it.'"
Perhaps the hardest thing for Holton was dealing with some of the people she knew and their reactions.
"The looks of people who I've known for years that just say, `Oh, let me put some distance between you and I,'" she said. "One some level, I've been convicted before there's ever even been a trial."
But she had a lot of support, as well.
"My parents, my pastor. Other women clergy, friends of mine who have prayed with me and for me. My office manager at City Hall, who has walked this walk with me every step of the way, who is a woman of faith. My siblings," she said.
She still faces challenges because of this.
"All of this is not over yet. There's still a window of time for the state prosecutor's office to appeal," Holton said. "It takes but a moment to ruin a reputation and yet it can take a lifetime to rebuild it."
Councilwoman Holton says she continues to have a good working relationship with the mayor and remains friends with developer Ronald Lipscomb, both targets of that corruption probe.
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