SHERIFF LINKED TO BROWNING TAPE

Judge Says Official Lent Video Equipment

HARLAN - A controversial videotape that showed slain Harlan County
sheriff's candidate Paul Browning accepting stacks of cash and bragging
about his plans to kill a man was made with equipment lent by the current
sheriff, according to the county's circuit judge.

The same judge, Ron Johnson, has since told Harlan's local newspaper that
he leaked the tape to the news media.

Asked this week whether he provided the surveillance equipment, Sheriff
Steve Duff grinned a little and said, "I don't have any comment about that."

An attorney for Dewayne Harris, the man who apparently made the video,
confirmed that law enforcement was involved.

"It's my understanding that Mr. Harris was furnished the video equipment by
a police agency," said Otis Doan Jr., Harris' attorney.

At the time of the recording, sometime in late February, Duff and Browning
were in the middle of a bare-knuckle race to win the May 28 primary
election. Browning had been Harlan's sheriff in the early 1980s, before he
was sent to prison on a 1982 conviction for conspiring to kill two local
public officials.

The prosecutor in that case was Johnson, now the circuit judge.

Death came during hot race

Browning's return this year to local politics -- with his rights to vote
and run for office restored -- was marked by harshly worded ads targeting
Duff's administration.

On March 23, local residents found Browning's body, burned beyond
recognition, in his Toyota pickup truck at the base of a hill in Bell
County. A state medical examiner, John Hunsaker, said Browning died from a
gunshot to the head.

News of the February videotape surfaced last month after Johnson gave the
recording, a part of the Kentucky State Police's murder investigation, to
the Herald-Leader.

In the days after Browning's death, Johnson said, he received a copy of the
tape from Duff, along with an explanation of how it came to be.

Johnson provided the following account, which he said Duff had shared with him:

"This guy came to the sheriff's office with some audio tapes and said
(Browning) is trying to shake him down" for money, Johnson said.

After listening to the audio tapes, Duff told the man that because he was a
candidate in the sheriff's race he didn't feel comfortable investigating
Browning.

But, Duff said he would be willing to provide the video equipment and
set-up instructions.

Johnson said in an interview that he didn't ask the name of the man who
approached the sheriff. Duff has subsequently said the videotape was made
and delivered by Harris, who has multiple drug-related convictions.

"He contacted us (and said) that Browning was coming to his residence,"
Duff said in an interview.

Police knew of tape, says Duff

On the videotape, Browning, apparently unaware that he was being recorded,
is seen speaking with Harris in the living room of Harris' mobile home. In
addition to talking about killing Tommy Woodard, a former deputy who
testified against him in the 1980s, Browning told Harris that he would be
tough on some drug dealers while leaving others alone.

Moments after Harris handed him a stack of cash said to total $2,500,
Browning said it was the best money Harris had ever spent.

Browning's son, Paul Browning III, said the conversations were part of an
undercover operation by his father to expose corruption in Harlan County
politics. Both Duff and Johnson have scoffed at that explanation.

After he received the tape, about three weeks before Browning's murder,
Duff said he offered it to both the state police special investigations
unit in Lexington and the U.S. attorney's office in London.

Representatives of the U.S. attorney's office viewed the tape and said they
needed some time to research the legal implications of Browning's
statements, Duff said. Calls to the office of U.S. Attorney Greg Van
Tatenhove for this story were not returned.

Duff said the state police were scheduled to pick up a copy of the tape but
never showed up. In fact, he said, they didn't come by until after
Browning's death.

Sgt. David Biggerstaff of the special investigations unit referred
questions to the Harlan post, where Detective Ken Crider said he knew of
the tape before Browning's murder. However, Biggerstaff said, the video was
never offered to him.

"It wasn't very aggressive law enforcement," said Johnson, the Harlan judge.

Ethics questioned

An expert on judicial ethics said judges who release evidence, such as the
videotape, to the news media may be overly aggressive themselves.

Although she wouldn't comment on specifics, Cynthia Gray, director of the
Center for Judicial Ethics at the American Judicature Society, said, in
general, that judges should not comment on pending cases or criminal
investigations.

"That a judge should not leak evidence is also inherent in the limits on a
judge's role and the importance of judicial neutrality," said Gray, whose
Chicago-based organization is widely recognized as a leading national
authority on judicial ethics.

Johnson said he wasn't worried.

"It was part of the public domain, in my opinion," he said. "The people
need to know that this man was a nut, and a crooked one at that."