This is a strange story, but it is true. There are police records that prove a lot of it. It is a story that involves Bill Boner, who says he’s clean.
It also involves Roy Dale, one of Boner’s political adversaries. And Dale is mightily peeved.
What’s more, it is a story that involves a woman, who is central to everything but who, in this article, shall remain nameless.
Dale, who represents Donelson in Metro Council and is not married, admits to having carried on a “lengthy relationship” with the woman. Dale says he ended the relationship sometime around the beginning of the year. When he did so, the woman got upset. According to Dale, she simply would not leave him alone.
Things got so bad that Dale, in an attempt to end the harrassment, obtained three separate warrants against the woman. In a curious, only-in-Nashville twist of fate, the case has ended up in the court of General Sessions Judge Gale Robinson, scion of one of Middle Tennessee’s most powerful Democratic families.
At this point, Robinson has ordered Dale and the woman to have no communication with each other. A court date has yet to be set.
Enter Boner. The former congressman and Metro mayor, who is attempting his political comeback by running as a Democrat in the 52nd District, will probably face Dale, who is running for the same seat as a Republican, in the November general election. Boner faces several opponents in the Democratic Primary, which is to be held in August. Thus far he is an odds-on favorite to fill the Democratic slot on the ballot.
Last Friday, Boner met with the woman. At that meeting, he says, he solicited her support for his campaign. However, Dale paints another picture. He says Boner is digging up dirt to be used later in the 52nd District race. Dale says Boner may very likely end up hurting the woman by dragging her into the race. He says that Boner, who claims to have reformed his wild-living ways, has no right to call himself a Christian.
“It is sad, and it is sick,” says Dale. “I would never go out and talk to all of Boner’s ex-wives to get dirt on him, even if they called me.”
Boner, for his part, professes innocence. He maintains that he has not said anything negative about Dale thus far and that he doesn’t plan to do so. He says he heard the rumors of Dale’s relationship months ago and didn’t look into them then. And he says the meeting came about not because of his efforts but because one of his other supporters thought the woman could provide Boner with the names of potential campaign supporters.
“I just went to meet with her about getting some support in Donelson,” says Boner, who, in the course of his five marriages, has a long history of unusual behavior with women himself. “That’s all I did.”
The charges and countercharges of dirty campaign tricks stem from the woman’s relationship with Dale, who is divorced. A “fairly serious relationship,” as Dale describes it, developed after the woman’s husband died and his own marriage fell apart. (Dale was officially separated from his wife in 1993; the divorce was final in October 1994.)
Dale says he wanted a “little more space” in the dating relationship and brought it to an end. Unfortunately, he says, “she cared a lot about me and had a very difficult time accepting that. She would not break contact with me. Basically, she had an illness and has been diagnosed as having a particular illness. Ultimately, I had to get the police involved.”
Dale says the woman made hundreds of calls to his house and that she repeatedly drove by his home. Dale says he and the woman met with officials from Metro’s Domestic Violence Unit, but the behavior continued. Finally, she was arrested, not just once, but three times during February and March. She was placed in jail, only to be released by Robinson when she agreed to get professional help. According to Dale, she was eventually hospitalized.
Robinson directed that the two parties have no contact of any kind with each other. Dale recently violated that order when he wrote a letter to the woman. The woman’s attorney informed the district attorney’s office of the letter; the district attorney’s office told Robinson, who says he then told both parties that he was more than prepared to throw either of them in jail if they violated the order.
Meanwhile, Boner says his meeting with the woman was arranged by a go-between. He said the meeting was not extraordinary. “In the meeting the woman told me she could help me, because she’s from Donelson. We met for about 30 minutes. We probably only spent about 10 minutes talking about her situation with Roy.”
While Boner says he does not plan to use the harassment charges in his campaign, he does say that he has heard that “there was a lot more behind it” than what Dale is telling.
When Dale got wind of Boner’s having met with the woman, he immediately called Boner. Dale says that “sources” had told him that Boner met with the woman specifically to get information about the relationship. He says he wanted to complain directly to Boner.
According to Dale, the call went this way: “Basically, I told him I had no desire to get into a contest with him based upon his personal past. He said he knew we were both Christians, and that might help the campaign. I said I knew that he was rediscovering his life but that it was also my understanding that he had gone out and talked to this girl. I said she had been through a lot and that it was totally inappropriate for him to have done that. I got upset about it.”
Boner says he has no plans to publicize any information communicated to him by the woman. At the same time, he says Dale sounds like “a guilty dog barking about something.” Boner says he is expecting the woman to support him during the campaign.
Meanwhile, Dale says he wishes the best for the woman. He says he understands she is dating another man and that he does not want to hinder her new relationship. He says he wants to win the District 52 seat and that, now that he has seen Bill Boner’s campaign tactics firsthand, he is willing “to help anyone and do anything I can to ensure that Bill Boner gets beat.”
Bill Boner is back in politics. Let the strangeness begin.
