CANDIDATE ADMITS SMOKING POT

HAMILTON -- Butler County prosecutor candidate Robin Piper says he made a
mistake on Memorial Day weekend 1981 when, as a college student, he
accepted a marijuana cigarette that was being passed around at a park in
the Lake Erie town of Put-in-Bay.

"Yes, there was a time when I admit I tried something I shouldn't have --
unlike President Clinton," Mr. Piper said, referring to the president's
classic "I-didn't-inhale" denial of smoking pot.

"I made an immature, youthful indiscretion in being around people who had
marijuana," said Mr. Piper, "and the message I would want for young people
to know is that, no matter how minor the law, you are responsible ....
Don't give in to that temptation because it can cause you anguish later in
life."

Mr. Piper, 46, disputed a report Tuesday alleging he may have covered up
the 19-year-old incident, in which he was cited for a minor misdemeanor and
paid a $60 fine by mail.

In what both sides have predicted will be a nasty political campaign, Mr.
Piper said his opponent took extreme measures to get the information:
Prosecutor John F. Holcomb sent a county employee on a chartered flight to
Put-in-Bay. Mr. Piper sees the revelation as an early strike in a "smear
campaign," timed to taint local Fraternal Order of Police endorsement
interviews next month.

But Mr. Holcomb replied: "It's not a smear campaign. The question is, is it
the truth? If it's the truth, and it smears him, then he ought to be
smeared. He's a disgrace."

At the time of the Put-in-Bay incident, Mr. Piper was a 27-year-old
University of Dayton law student. He said he can't remember whether he
disclosed the matter on his state bar application, which he filled out in
1980 or 1981. He also doesn't recall whether such a disclosure was
required.

Mr. Piper said he wants to direct attention to more important issues in the
race.

"I'm not getting into a dispute over a minor misdemeanor and the meaning of
words in a document that was filled out 20 years ago," he said. "...Why
aren't we addressing Holcomb's vision of the prosecutor's office against my
vision of the prosecutor's office?"

Mr. Piper began working as an assistant prosecutor under Mr. Holcomb in
March 1983.

During the hiring process, Mr. Piper said he started to tell Mr. Holcomb
about "a party weekend" in which he'd gotten into some trouble. But, as Mr.
Piper recalls it, Mr. Holcomb seemed uninterested in hearing the details.

Mr. Holcomb, however, says if he had learned about the marijuana citation,
"I would have thrown him through the window." He said he didn't conduct a
background check on Mr. Piper because he came with a good reference: Mr.
Piper's father, who was a minister and a fellow Democrat.

"I figured if the preacher's telling me he's good, he must be," Mr. Holcomb
said. "That's the last time I'll ever do that."