Mobile mayoral candidate Spiro Cheriogotis is responding to scrutiny over a new ad where he claimed his father was sent to prison for defending himself.
“When I was four, I saw a man try to kill my father,” Cheriogotis said in the ad. “My dad defended himself and ended up in prison. I remember feeling helpless.”
A close look at the case shows Nicholas Cheriogotis was arrested in 1987 and charged with the murder of Allbun Lamar Smith in Houston County.
According to court documents, Smith, a former employee of Nicholas Cheriogotis, was driving a box truck in Dothan on the afternoon of Nov. 17, 1987. Nicholas Cheriogotis was driving a brown pickup truck and spotted Smith, whom he claimed had been stalking him. Witnesses said they saw Smith looking in his rearview mirror and laughing and pointing at Nicholas Cheriogotis.
The two eventually came to a stop in a driveway in the community of Grimes. They engaged in a physical altercation, leaving Nicholas Cheriogotis with a cut on his arm. Nicholas Cheriogotis claimed he feared for his life because Smith had a knife and advanced karate skills.
That’s when he went back to his truck and retrieved a .22 caliber handgun. Nicholas Cheriogotis shot Smith, killing him.
The prosecution claimed Nicholas Cheriogotis had his four-year-old son in the vehicle at the time of the shooting. That four-year-old son was Spiro Cheriogotis.
Nicholas Cheriogotis was convicted on a lesser charge of manslaughter and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. He spent three years in prison and 12 years on probation.
The incident took the elder Cheriogotis from his son for three years. However, Spiro Cheriogotis said it also shaped who he is today.
“The experience shaped my life in many ways,” Cheriogotis told 1819 News. “It was hard to lose my father’s daily presence in my life. There were many impacts to my family, including bankruptcy. The first time I saw snow was while visiting Dad at Elmore County Prison. We went every other weekend to visit. It taught me that the system doesn’t work for everyone. It taught me the need to constantly evaluate our laws and the importance of integrity within every branch of our legal system.”
After becoming a judge himself, Cheriogotis said he was able to see cases from all positions in a courtroom.
“I've had the unfortunate and fortunate opportunities to sit in every seat of a courtroom as the family of a defendant, as a prosecutor with the family of victims and as the judge,” Cheriogotis added. “My life experience gave me a strong sense of duty and fairness. I was committed to listening to all the facts of each case.”
Cheriogotis said the outcome of his father’s case was not what the family wanted. However, he remembers his family talking about how respectful the judge was throughout the case.
“That obviously shaped my view of judges at a young age,” he said. “It gave me an appreciation for how each and every decision, no matter how ‘large or small,’ can have a lasting impact on the people involved. Most importantly, the experiences associated with this time in my life make me a more empathetic leader.”
As for the victim’s family, Cheriogotis said he recognizes their pain.
“Two families were forever changed that day,” he said. “I am sorry for their loss, and I pray for God’s peace beyond all knowing for everyone who felt the impact of that event. “
Cheriogotis said he did not choose to highlight his father’s case in the ad or to re-litigate it. He said he was telling his own personal lived experience as a child to show how it has shaped his perspective on many things, including crime.
“There are many young people in our community today with incarcerated family members and others who have lost loved ones to criminal behavior,” Cheriogotis said. “I know firsthand how tough that can make things for a child, and I want those young people to see that they can overcome adversity through hard work and good character. That also means ensuring that our city provides the wrap-around services needed to lift up every child, no matter the hardship their family is facing. I can’t tell the citizens about who I am without talking about this. In the end, I truly believe my father's actions that day saved my life and his. The event certainly helped shape me into the person I am, and I will never be ashamed of that.”
In the new ad, the campaign stated that what’s next in Mobile is “safety, stability, Spiro.”
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