When Craig Blitzer became district attorney of Rockingham County in North Carolina, he was worried about taking a pay cut because his wife Cindy had got the couple into a lot of debt. But he was reassured when he realized he could employ her as his assistant. After all, that’s what his friend Wallace Bradsher, district attorney of neighboring Person and Caswell counties, had done with his wife, putting her on salary as an assistant. When both district attorneys learned from the state ethics commission that they weren’t allowed to hire relatives, they made a deal to swap wives. Cindy Blitzer went to work for Wallace Bradsher, and Pam Bradsher went to work for Craig Blitzer. Only Cindy Blitzer was also attending nursing school full-time, which meant she did little to no work for Brasher.
In this episode, Wallace Bradsher acts as his own attorney and questions Cindy Blitzer about how much she knew (or claimed to know) about the $48,000 she received in unearned pay. Cindy Blitzer avoided criminal charges because her husband made a plea deal with the state on a misdemeanor charge (he also had to pay back the $48,000). Wallace Bradsher was sentenced to four months in prison and stripped of his law license.
