News

Unfinished Business

A son denied becomes a festering campaign issue haunting Commissioner Eggelletion as Election Day approaches

A A A Comments (7) By Bob Norman Thursday, Aug 14 2008

C. Stiles

The former schoolteacher made an offer for her silence that Angie Sanders could refuse.

Laura Massa

Sanders testified that she was a high school student when the affair began.

More About

On a hot night in July, Angie Sanders watched Broward County Commissioner Josephus Eggelletion walk up to a table outside Starbucks. He looked breezy in the heat, wearing loose yellow slacks and a green Tommy Bahama shirt. An unlit cigar stub jutted from his mouth.

As Eggelletion took a seat across from Sanders outside the Plantation store, Sanders felt something strange in the air. It didn't seem quite real to her. HE didn't seem quite real to her. Never did, really, dating all the way back to their first kiss, 29 years before, when she was a 17-year-old senior in high school and Eggelletion was her 30-year-old teacher at Dillard High School.

At the time, Eggelletion, who recently finished a stint as Broward County mayor and is up for reelection to the County Commission in the August 26 primary, was ten years away from politics. He was busy, though. In 1979, he not only taught economics and government but also owned a barbershop and ran a janitorial service that specialized in cleaning banks. It was in one of those banks, after hours, that Sanders met him after school. The teacher and the student, who was a cheerleader, sat down on a couch in the dimly lit bank lobby.

"He just grabbed me, and we kissed," she says. "I was thinking, 'Is this real? He's a teacher.' It felt almost like a movie, like it wasn't happening."

In addition to the fact that he was a teacher and she was underaged, Eggelletion was married with children. Sanders says they tried to keep the ensuing affair as secretive as possible, but Eggelletion's wife found out and told her parents. It almost tore her family apart, but the relationship endured on and off until she was 25, when Sanders became pregnant with Eggelletion's son.

Their romance ended with the baby's birth. Eggelletion, still married, didn't offer any help to raise the child, who was named Omar, and she didn't ask him for any.

(Eggelletion has steadfastly refused to discuss the situation with New Times and didn't respond to messages for comment. When reached on his cell phone, he asked that a reporter not call him anymore and hung up.)

It wasn't until 2005 that Sanders filed a paternity suit against Eggelletion. Though DNA tests proved him the father, he won the case on a legal technicality. The case made the newspapers, though the scandalous nature of the relationship received scant attention in the mainstream press.

Eggelletion, victory in hand, has basically ignored his son ever since, say both Sanders and Omar. Until a couple of months ago, anyway. That's when he began reaching out to Sanders.

But the overtures weren't really about Omar; they were all about preserving Eggelletion's political career.

He's in a heated battle for his County Commission seat with opponents church pastor Allen Jackson, Lauderdale Lakes Commissioner John Billingsley, and Lauderhill Commissioner Dale Holness. And that's why he met with Sanders at Starbucks on July 19, six weeks before the upcoming August 26 primary.

With his cigar still unlit, Eggelletion told her he believed that Jackson was going to use "the Omar thing" against him in the campaign, Sanders says. He said that if she would help stop Jackson from bringing his son into the race, there would be money in it for her and Omar. All she had to do, Sanders says, was deny that they'd had sex when she was a minor and write a letter threatening to sue Jackson if he used her name or Omar's name in any campaign literature.

He couldn't pay her now, she says he told her, but once the election was over, he'd be able to throw her $500 here and there. At one point, a figure of $7,000 was tossed out, she says.

"The public can't know about this," she says he told her.

Sanders says she responded that she didn't feel comfortable with the idea because Jackson had done nothing to her and she didn't want to lie. She told him she would sleep on it.

But even as she was leaving the parking lot, she was filled with a powerful mix of anger and sadness. She had already figured out that Eggelletion cared nothing for her or Omar. This was about his political career. And she couldn't believe his arrogance and gall. The proposition was not only wrong but in her opinion bordered on bribery.

At the same time, Omar needed help from his absentee father not only financially but also emotionally. Going along with Eggelletion's scheme might help on both counts. She says she called her brother in tears that night.

"What should I do?" she asked him.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized the commissioner was just using her and Omar as pawns in his political game. She decided not to do it.

She decided to expose him instead.

Sanders, who was born Angelita Rice, remembers the time she poked a girl in the face with a sharpened pencil.

It was during the 45-minute bus ride from the black neighborhoods of northeast Fort Lauderdale to Nova High School, where it was western and white. Neighborhood kids would pick on Sanders for her looks and her background.

Check out this week's featured ad for News

AMPM Research Clinic

View Ad View Website

More Ads >>

Email
to Friend

Write to
Editor

Print
Article

Ms. Little 09/21/2008 10:43:00 PM

It is appalling to read this garbage and intrusion in family matters. There is a saying, "Blacks people are their own worst Enemy." I blast the writer, paper and editor of this tabloid writing. I recently read a similiar article about Commissioner Haynes. Let me remind the readers, writers and editor, who approved these stories, that no man is perfect. And as I recall from my bible studies, we are not likely to see a man of flesh, walking in the footsteps of the Great Messiah, Jesus, who died to forgive our sins. We need to stop trying to hurt these men, because a woman has been scorned. Mrs. Sanders and Mrs. Key, you weren't innocent bystanders in your situations. You willingly participated in these adultrerous affairs, which produced children who will have to live with sinful irresponsible actions of their parents. Don't think that God see's your actions as a lesser sin. A sin is a Sin, and unless you ask for forgiveness and change your lifestyle of trying to hurt others, you won't be able to move on in life. Did you ever think that with this behavior you may be hindering your Blessings from God. Both of you have allowed your unwillingness to move on with your lives overpower your commonsense with details of your extramarital affairs. How could any man trust either of you, when you've admitted that you had an affair with a married man, while married yourselves. And finally, how could you expose your children like this? Both of you acuses the father's of not being there for the children. The two of you are there, therefore, established good examples. Let's get over The Baby Mama Drama, and start being a Real Mother!! Sympathy works with mistakes, but you keep making mistakes. Only this time you are using your beautiful children, to help you scorn the men that were never yours to begin with. Praises to the mother of Mr. Eggletion's other daughter, for not exposing her child to the public's gossip. I'm sure she will also thank her mother for keeping her paternity, between those who matters most, family and close friends, who will make a positive impact on her life!
Mae Smith 08/26/2008 6:25:00 AM

District 9, we are in need of a new leader. We can do this when take a advantage of the power to vote. Everyone who plans to add fuel to the fire; think about how you would feel if this were your family. I pray for peace for this family. I can only imagine the pain they must be feeling. I pray men began to take their rightful place in the Lord; when they do, they will began to be that rock for the family that God intended for them to be. PS: I would like to set the record straight; Allen B. Jackson did not send the mailer about this issue. He would not do this. It was Commissioner Dale Holnes of Lauderhill.
Carla Blackburn 08/24/2008 6:56:00 PM

Angie,it's women like you that need to be slapped. Maybe Rev Jackson can handle that one for us!! We got his flyer the same day we got the re-print of this crazy artcle. People are going to still vote for Joe cause he knows what he is doing. He has done more for the dam county that any other politician would do for black folks and foriegn people. The last thing we need is some crazy person gettin in to office and messin stuff up. This is like some Clinton, mess and look where that got us, now we have Bush! So, what are you gonna do now? Keep writing the same thing for the next 20 years. Girl go get some help and move on with your sad life. Lord help all!!!
LaShawnda Eggelletion 08/24/2008 6:24:00 PM

My family, friends and co-workers all received a copy of your New-Times article written by Bob Norman in your August 14- August 20, 2008 issue. The re- printing and mass distribution of the article, which read very much like a plot from the �Young and Restless�, was no doubt a ploy of my father�s opponents to tarnish his character and take away votes from people who are not educated on all the tactics of political hit men. In this case it is �Rev� Allen Jackson, who wants to be a County Commissioner and his new found girl-friend Angie Sanders, a woman who still has no resolution to a fairy tale romance she created in her delusional mind years ago. I�m not sure why the New-Times would authorize such a re-printing of a one sided story whose details were not verified or even investigated. But, alas, facts don�t sell papers. I do not know Allen Jackson. I do not know Angie Sanders. I have witnessed Allen Jackson attack my father with words that border on hatred and slander�all in a desperate effort to be a politician and �help people�. I have never met Angie�s son Omar. My prayers go out to him, as from what I have researched he is still experiencing some trouble with the law and may soon be imprisoned for a charge he is facing. I do know that Angie Sanders and my father did indeed have a sexual relationship when she was married and when she became pregnant she allowed her husband to raise him without any knowledge of her affair or deceit. She was the only person who had knowledge that Omar was my father�s son, perhaps because she had planned it that way. The article stated that when her husband found out, �She remembers that he took it in stride.� In addition, Angie stated that he said �Well, I�ll feed him until he looks like me.� This made me laugh for at least 10 minutes. Does Mrs. Sanders actually think the general public is devoid of common sense. What man would take this kind of deceit in stride? How insulting! Most men would be devastated, angry or at least have some soul searching to do. Mr. Lockhart had no say in this article, so we don�t truly know his reaction. The article was clever. Angie has weaved a lot of details that she knows about my father into this delusional tale of teenage of love, adultery, and pure baby mama drama. She messed up on a lot of the details that she was trying to weave into her story however. For example, my father was not born in Tallahassee and has never lived there with his brothers or sisters. He was born and lived in Miami. That could have been checked, quite easily. She was never a student of his class. School board records are clear. My father never owned a Camaro Z-28. I owned a used Camaro and it was not a Z-28 (I could not afford that model), and I owned it 1986 when Sanders was 24 living with her husband in Atlanta. Mrs. Sanders younger brother would know this as he and my brother were good friends at the time of me owning the car. The Inverrary Golf Course fantasy was creative. My father started golfing when I was in high school and Mrs. Sanders was an adult living in Georgia. The bank story was also hilarious, as my mother�s brother owned a company that cleaned banks and my father and mother would assist him with the cleaning late in the evening for extra money. They don�t remember Angie being their kissing my father in the �dim lobby�. Last, the article stated that my mom learned of this �teenage love affair� and called Angie�s parents to demand that she stop seeing him.. My mother is a gracious woman, but her reaction would have gone far beyond calling her parents and frankly, I�m sure Angie�s overprotective father would have had my father put in jail. So good try to Angie! The story was very entertaining. It sounds like your adult memories have been weaved into your teenage fantasies. The truth is that Angie had a fantasy about my father as a teenager and she fulfilled it later on in life by having an affair with him, when my parents were going through a very difficult transition. Angie got pregnant from my dad and was too scared to tell her husband who was working hard and serving this country, so she lied to him for 16 years. During an argument she got bold and let her secret slip and her husband divorced her. She sued him for child support and put the poor man in jail. Talk about insult to injury! Seeing that she could not get anything out of her x-husband, she called my father, confessed the whole story and asked him for help to get her son Omar out of jail, because he had and still has legal troubles. My father, knowing the hell that he would have to pay if my mother found out, went up to Georgia and on the advice of a lawyer had a paternity test done first. The test came back that he was indeed the father and he offered to help Omar and give Angie the amount of child support that was deemed appropriate by law. Angie didn�t want that, instead, she wanted close to a million dollars, because in her delusional mind she thinks my father has some large hidden bank account. Trust me he does not! She threatened to go to the press with her story. So, on the threats of being blackmailed and having the affair exposed, my father confessed his affair to my mother, brother and myself and told us that we had a brother living in Georgia. As stated in the New Times article, my father also has another child that he fathered when my parents were separated and he has being paying child support to her mother since she was born, she is now 18 and I�m sure a very well adjusted, intelligent young woman, because her father and mother raised her with love. They never dragged her identity or name into the papers. Angie Sanders case was thrown out, because you can�t sue two men for child support in two different states. Her x-husband raised a child financially that he thought was his own and the woman still wanted to put him in jail and have my father, pay back child support dating back to the birth of a child he never had knowledge of. She still calls and asks him for money. My mother has been there to listen to the desperate phone calls, as have I. She has no caring for her son, she just wants money and she is angry and wants to embarrass my family. My father�s attorneys fees that he had to pay to defend himself could have easily put Omar through college- a dam good college- or helped his son. I sincerely feel sorry for Angie and I feel sorry for her son who is my half brother. She has done the wrong thing. My father and her both did the wrong thing. There is nothing right about adultery. Angie wants my father to suffer, but the people who have suffered the most include my mother, my brothers, and myself. Angie Sanders, needs to ask for forgiveness. My father has asked for forgiveness from the entire family and believe me he pays for his sins daily. I believe that vengeance truly belongs to God, but forgiveness must first be asked for with sincere heart and purpose from all those you have wronged. Mrs. Sanders needs to be woman enough to look my mother in the face and ask for forgiveness. She needs to apologize to her family, her friends, my family and the public for all the lies she has weaved together into this intricate tale that she reported to the New Times. My father is not a perfect man. Angie is not a perfect woman. Mr. Norman and �Rev Jackson� do not live in glass houses, but I would like to say to that I forgive all of these individuals for trying to hurt and embarrass my family, because only God knows the truth and has the right to render true justice.
John deGroot 08/14/2008 10:41:00 PM

Looks like Slick Joe is the new Coward from Broward. Anyhow... My advice to "the Omar Thing" is to get a job as a lobbyist - possib;y with Ronnie Book, or Jim Scott. Then,as a lobbyist, Omar will find his DNA Daddy will be all over him as a politician who never met a lobbyist he didn't like
John 08/14/2008 9:17:00 PM

Eggelletion once rear-ended me on Broward Blvd. during my morning commute. He was eating a sandwich and not paying attention to the stop-and-go traffic, and smacked into my car. I asked him if we could handle things nicely and he said he didn't do anything wrong and even if I called the police they wouldn't find him at fault. So I did. And they ticketed him for reckless driving. He got very mad, and I laughed. I didn't know at the time he was a commissioner. I'm sure he got out of the ticket somehow.
Angelita Sanders 08/14/2008 5:38:00 AM

Bob you did a wonderful job, This article was great!!!!! thank you so much.