Who’s Afraid of Virginia Thomas? Not Anita Hill

by Cathy Scott

What is up with Virginia Thomas? On a recent weekend, Thomas, wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, called Anita Hill’s voice mail and made a bizarre request.

In her message, Mrs. Thomas, seemingly out of the blue, asked for an apology from Hill for accusing the future Supreme Court associate justice of sexual harassment back in 1991 during his confirmation hearings--this, nearly two decades later. She won't get an apology.

Anita Hill has moved on--a long time ago, in fact--and perhaps Virginia Thomas should do the same. Now a professor at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, Hill, after receiving the message, first alerted campus security, because she thought the voice mail was a prank. She, unfortunately, has since learned that it was no joke. Yep, Mrs. Thomas had, indeed, left Ms. Hill the message, all these years later. Brandeis officials turned the matter over to the FBI.

According to a transcript of the call made available to the Boston Globe, the recorded voice said:

“Good morning, Anita Hill. It's Ginni Thomas. I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something.

“I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. Okay, have a good day.”

Say what ? Lest anyone forget the sordid details from two decades ago, Anita Hill, after being called to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, said under oath that Thomas, who was married to Virginia at the time, had repeatedly made crude and inappropriate sexual comments in the workplace, boasting of his sexual prowess, and referencing pornographic novels. (I'll leave the exact details of the alleged comments to your imagination and not repeat them here).

Clarence Thomas adamantly has denied the allegations, calling them “a high-tech lynching.”

Hill recently told the Globe that she has nothing to apologize for and does not intend to retract her accusations that Thomas made sexually suggestive remarks to her when she was an aide and he was her boss at the Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

“I certainly thought the call was inappropriate,” Hill said in a recent statement. “I have no intention of apologizing, and I stand by my testimony. No further explanation is needed. I testified truthfully about what my experience was back in the 1980s.”

For her part, Virginia Thomas, a Tea Party activist, confirmed to The New York Times that she was serious about wanting an apology. Here's Mrs. Thomas' official statement:

“I did place a call to Ms. Hill at her office extending an olive branch to her after all these years, in hopes that we could ultimately get passed what happened so long ago.


“That offer still stands. I would be very happy to meet and talk with her if she would be willing to do the same. Certainly no offense was ever intended.”

The New York Times opined that the he said-she said confrontation between Ms. Hill and the future Justice Thomas “deeply divided the country during what became a national debate about the nature of sexual behavior in the workplace.”

In addition, the paper reported, “Ms. Hill’s descriptions of unseemly conduct and his adamant denials produced one of the most polarizing Supreme Court confirmation battles of modern times.” In the end, the U.S. Senate confirmed Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court by a vote of 52 to 48. And he's been on the high court bench ever since.

Public interest in and debate over Hill's testimony has been said to be responsible in large part for modern-day public awareness of sexual harassment.

As for Mrs. Clarence Thomas, whatever it was--an agenda?--that prompted her, at this long-ago juncture, to reach out and touch Anita Hill is baffling. Virginia Thomas has not explained, other than to confirm making the call and leaving the message.

Perhaps the FBI, in its inquiry, will get to the bottom of the ordeal and provide answers. And maybe Anita Hill can be left alone.

Photos courtesy of The Associated Press.

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Did the “Black Widow” Kill Her Husband?

by Cathy Scott

News late last year that convicted murderer Margaret Rudin was granted a new Las Vegas trial came as a big surprise. After all, the courts and the media, who dubbed her “The Black Widow,” had convicted her eight years earlier.

Margaret wrote me from jail after a friend of hers e-mailed me about Margaret’s hopes for a new trial. Coincidentally, I’d met Margaret before. When my mother and sister, antiques dealers, visited from out of town. we’d always stop by Margaret’s antiques store on West Charleston Boulevard not far from the home she shared with her fifth husband, 64-year-old millionaire realtor Ron Rudin.

Margaret was soft spoken, polite, and unassuming. Other than that, seeing her in her store half a dozen times was unremarkable. It was that quiet demeanor, I believe, that led to half of her troubles.

Imagine my surprise when I learned that Margaret, the quiet shop owner, was named a suspect in the murder of her husband. Prosecutors contended that Margaret and an unknown accomplice shot Ron several times in the head as he slept in the master bedroom of the couple’s home.

The prosecution claimed that Margaret and her accomplice cut off Ron’s head to fit his body into an antique trunk, and then they took the body and the trunk to Nelson's Landing at Lake Mohave and set it on fire. In January 1995, as a father and his boy hiked the area, they stumbled across Ron Rudin’s skull, which had rolled down a hill from the burned out trunk above.

Margaret’s story gained national notoriety when, as police and the district attorney’s office started closing in on her. Instead of staying to fight, Margaret, shy and reserved, fled town. She was featured several times on Fox TV’s “America’s Most Wanted” show. Two years after fleeing Las Vegas, a man in Massachusetts recognized Margaret as a neighbor and turned her in to police. A sting was set up when Margaret and her roommate ordered pizza. She was arrested by in a Boston suburb after a police officer posed as a pizza deliveryman. Police surrounded the house and they pulled Margaret, wearing a black wig, from a closet, where she’d hidden from them. She had been living, first in Arizona, then in Massachusetts, for two years under an assumed name. Because Margaret fled, many figured she was guilty; otherwise, why would she flee? If you believe Margaret, it was because she was losing her legal fight against the trustees of husband's estate, who had turned on her. She was afraid she couldn't win.

Margaret wasn't the only one who stood to gain from Ron Rudin’s death. The defense suggested there were others who had a motive to murder Ron, including the trustees and beneficiaries, who took control of Ron’s fortunes after Margaret was accused of murder. Many gained millions from his death. Margaret, because she was accused, then convicted, of killing Ron, was ousted from the will.

The mantra in the Rudin case this time around looks like it will be “follow the money.” With Margaret, who was given 60 percent of her husband’s estimated $10 million in assets, out of the picture; the trustees’ cut of the estate was much larger. According to testimony of Ron's associates, he wasn't the most popular man in Las Vegas and was known for his falling outs with people. Others, the defense contended at the time, had reasons to want Ron dead. It all will play out again in a Nevada courtroom, probably in early 2010.

District Court Judge Joseph Bonaventure, now retired from the bench, presided over the first trial, which lasted nine weeks. At Margaret’s sentencing, Bonaventure told Margaret, “You're going to be locked away in the cold confines of your prison cell, never to be heard from again.”

It seems Margaret Rudin has the last word after all.

Scott is a true crime author who splits her time between Las Vegas and San Diego. Her latest book—The Rough Guide to True Crime (Penguin)—is scheduled for release Aug. 31.

Photo courtesy of CBS News

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