Mugshot of Gary Bruce Dodds Photo Credit: VIPD
ST. CROIX — Police on Tuesday arrested Gary B. Dodds, a former U.S. Congressional candidate convicted of faking an accident to win sympathy for his failing 2007 campaign. He was arrested for allegedly assaulting a woman in Frederiksted and taking her cellphone on August 23.
According to V.I.P.D. Public Information Officer Toby Derima, police arrested Dodds at 7:11 p.m. Tuesday and charged him with second-degree robbery stemming from the August 23 incident, which police say occurred on Strand Street in Frederiksted.
Dodds is a known figure in the state of New Hampshire, where he once ran for office and was charged with causing a false public alarm, leaving the scene of a crash and falsifying evidence by altering the appearance of his feet.
According to March 30, 2008 Associated Press report in the L.A. Times, prosecutors said that Dodds, suspected of being an adulterer desperate to boost his pitiful campaign, crashed his car and was picked up by an accomplice. He is believed to have spent the night in hiding, soaking his feet in cold water to make it appear that he had been outdoors. The next day, he snuck back to the scene of the crash and awaited to be rescued.
From the article: "Why were Dodds’ feet swollen and purple when he was rescued but the rest of his skin a healthy pink? Why were there footprints leading from the car back up to the highway, but — by most accounts — none leading into the woods? If Dodds had nearly drowned in the river, why were his clothes dry except for his shoes and socks?
"And why would he cross the river in the first place, passing by homes on one side and a condominium complex on the other, never calling for help?
“You’d have to avoid human beings. You’re running into civilization left and right,” Strafford County Attorney Thomas Velardi told jurors at Dodds’ trial. “You’re not on a ledge on Mt. Washington. You ain’t in the Ozarks. You’re in a neighborhood in Dover, New Hampshire.”
In another article alluding to an alleged affair, Dodds' wife at the time, Cindy, testified in court in February 2008 that she had asked her husband to move his campaign office from Portsmouth to Manchester, New Hampshire to get away from a particular campaign staffer, Alison Spruce.
Dodds was sentenced to one to four years in prison, with all of it suspended pending his good behavior for two years, and he was ordered to pay restitution of $21,500 for the massive rescue effort when he was thought to be lost, according to Seacoast Online.
In an August 2009 ruling, the New Hampshire state Supreme Court upheld convictions against Dodds on charges of false public alarm, conduct after an accident and falsifying physical evidence.
The V.I.P.D. report says Dodds was unable to make bail of $25,000 when arrested, and he was remanded to the Bureau of Corrections pending his advisement hearing.
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