HOPEWELL, Va. -- As the Hopewell prosecutor digs into a conflict-of-interest probe of the vice-mayor's alleged longtime affair with the former sheriff, that man's wife says she's considering a run against the mistress if she doesn't step down from city council.
"I'm planning on it," Ellen Hunter told me Wednesday evening.
And if his wife decides not to run, former Sheriff Greg Anderson says he just may come out of retirement to challenge the much-younger woman who he once showered with gifts, loving and sweet talk.
If this sounds like a bit too much drama, remember that it's Greg "Bring It On" Anderson we're talking about here.
You may recall three years ago, how the blustery sheriff made national news when he successfully told state legislators, the Virginia State Police and AAA to butt out when they tried to stop his deputies from ticketing speeders on Hopewell's one-mile stretch of Interstate 295 -- the so-called "million-dollar mile."
Now he's back as the retired sheriff, gunning for Vice Mayor Christina Luman-Bailey, whom he says he cheated on his wife with for more than eight years.
Former Sheriff Greg Anderson and Hopewell Vice Mayor Christina Luman-Bailey
"In March of this year," he said, "my wife was able to access my personal computer and found a secret file and discovered that I had an 8 1/2 year affair - personal and sexual - with City Counselor Christina Luman-Bailey. And as my mama told me when I was young, she said, 'Son, when you get caught with your hand the cookie jar, it's very important that you stand up like a man and admit what you've done wrong.'"
But he admits he was also hearing his wife's voice, telling him he had to come clean publicly about the affair and help force his lover out of office.
"She invaded my life for eight-and-a-half years," Ellen Hunter said. But, she added, the vice mayor also betrayed her office.
She said as she read through his secret file detailing the liaisons and gifts, she told him, "You bought her all those things - and she voted on your budgets? Isn't that illegal?"
Luman-Bailey did not answer her door or her home and cell phones, but she denied the affair in previous comments to the media, saying the dust-up is politically motivated and that she and Anderson were just friends. The two families live almost back to back in the City Point neighborhood.
That prompted Hunter to send me a photo of an alleged liaison and a love note supposedly written by Luman-Bailey.
Hunter kept her husband, she said, "Because I love him more than anything."
Anderson also professes great love for his wife, saying the long and sporadic affair was never going to overwhelm his commitment to his wife or his steadfastness as a top law enforcement officer.
He denies there was any pillow talk, and the conflict-of-interest the city prosecutor is looking into "is sort of a technical law." But he did say, "I am very lucky and very happy that it didn't break on my watch."
Luman-Bailey has previously served as mayor on council and is considered to be a tough politician to challenge. I'm told there had been whispers for years in town about her relationship with Anderson, who is 66 to her 49 years.
But Ellen Hunter could well be a formidable challenger, if the vice-mayor doesn't step down and isn't forced out.
Hunter's family has deep roots in this town. They were in real estate and opened the town's first drug stores. And she was the head cheerleader at Hopewell High School back in the day.
"I do love my hometown," Hunter said. "I've been here all my life. And she's presenting herself as something she's not."
