THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 16, 1997 TAG: 9701160322
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE ALLEN, THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: PENHOOK, VA. LENGTH: 70 lines
A client of Gilbert K. Davis, lawyer for Paula Jones and a Republican candidate for Virginia attorney general, has released a videotape that shows Davis joking about stripping and offering to help the woman land in Playboy magazine.
The client, Ramona Lemons Hines, initially tried to sell the 2-year-old tape but said she found no immediate takers. She said she released it anyway because she felt that Davis' nationally televised comments about sexual harassment and President Clinton were hypocritical in light of the activity she had recorded.
``Gil Davis doesn't live by these standards he talks about,'' she said in an interview at her home on Smith Mountain Lake in western Virginia.
On the tape, Davis chortles and waves a glass as he offers to help arrange for Hines to pose for Playboy. ``Just leave it in my hands,'' he said. At one point, he cranes his neck to kiss the lens as she wields the camera.
``I know what you want to do. You want to take your clothes off,'' Davis says with a deep laugh. ``You want to take all of your clothes off and expose your body.''
Davis, who lives in Fairfax County, is one of four men seeking the Republican nomination for attorney general in a June 10 primary. On Monday, he argued before the Supreme Court that Jones should be allowed to pursue her sexual harassment suit against Clinton and not wait until he leaves office.
Davis did not return messages left at his office and home. His publicist, Cindy Hays, said he cited attorney-client privilege in refusing to comment.
``He said, `I'm her lawyer and I can't say anything that would hurt her as long as I represent her,' '' Hays said.
One of Davis' opponents for the Republican nomination for attorney general, state Sen. Kenneth W. Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, predicted that release of the tape ``will have a huge impact on the primary.''
``Gil's going to have a hard time explaining these types of statements to the public,'' Stolle said. ``Republican primary voters are conservative voters that will probably have a difficult time understanding these types of comments.''
Bert L. Rohrer, spokesman for the Virginia Democratic Party, said after the tape's contents were described to him: ``Mr. Davis apparently presented one side of his character to Virginians and the Supreme Court and quite another to the woman on the tape.''
Hines, 30, said the taped meeting took place at the Roanoke Marriott in late 1994. Her husband, Glen, was in the room at the time and she made giggling sounds. ``It was funny at the time,'' Glen Hines said. ``Now, it looks kind of sick.''
On the tape, Davis jokingly refers to barmaids dressed in shredded cellophane, and to an imaginary bar with one bartender and 50 barmaids.
Davis represents Hines in a lawsuit pending in Henry County Circuit Court against a Martinsville television station, Channel 57, for which she was an account executive. Hines was fired in 1994 after her husband appeared on a rival station, Cable 6, to say that his wife was having an affair with an on-air host at her station. Hines and her husband have since reconciled.
When asked about the timing of her accusations and the fact that some might think she's an opportunist, Hines said she simply wants to settle her case with Channel 57 and get on with her life.
She said she's angry because she thinks Davis put her case on the back burner.
ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Gilbert Davis is seeking the Republican nomination for attorney
general
KEYWORDS: CANDIDATE VIRGINIA ATTORNEY GENERAL RACE