Let’s pretend for a moment that in the case of Barry Stokes and 1Point Solutions that Stokes is a Republican. Here are some possible front page headlines:

Major GOP Donor Flight Risk
Executive with ties to GOP Campaign found with information on how to change identity

GOP Donor Denied Bail

GOP Backer Remains in Jail

But no such headline since Barry Stokes is a big donor to Tennessee Democrats and since Governor Bredesen’s close advisor and campaign Treasurer Stuart Brunson lobbied on behalf of Stokes and 1Point. Located over in the Business Section of the Tennessean:

Maybe if the FBI hadn’t found that manual on how to change your identity on Barry Stokes’ computer, things would have turned out differently for him yesterday.

Or if he hadn’t cashed all those checks in defiance of a federal judge’s order.

Or if he hadn’t secretly moved more than $1 million worth of Japanese woodblock prints a bankruptcy trustee planned to sell to pay creditors.

But added together, they were enough to persuade U.S. Magistrate Judge E. Clifton Knowles at a detention and preliminary hearing to deny Stokes bond and send him back to jail at the Criminal Justice Center downtown.

NashvillePost had the story first yesterday afternoon:

After hearing an FBI agent tell of a suspicious document discovered on his personal computer, the judge ruled that Stokes posed a serious flight risk.

Suzanne Nash, a special agent with the Bureau’s white-collar crime task force, said the 295-page downloaded document was headed “How to change your identity.” It featured helpful hints on obtaining bogus passports, faking one’s own death, setting up offshore bank accounts and other coping mechanisms for the man on the run.

Recap:

State Sen. Doug Jackson of Dickson has asked the Tennessee Democratic Party’s chairman to return $52,500 that Barry Stokes, chief executive officer and founder of bankrupt 1Point Solutions, has contributed to the party.

And:

“This is a cheap Republican ploy,” Tuke [Chairman of Tennessee Democrat Party] said in a telephone interview this afternoon. “Doug bit. I’m not going to bite.”