Home > Gwinnett > Rick Badie / My Opinion > Archives > 2006 > March > 02
Thursday, March 2, 2006
Jet-setting life can lead to gum decay
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Please son, never steal a jet.
I don’t know how I’d react.
One thing’s for certain, though. I wouldn’t be waging a battle with the county’s top cop over dental floss. Or the lack thereof.
Flossgate is brewing in Gwinnett. It pits our bushy-eyebrowed sheriff against the father of an alleged jet thief.
Scott Wolcott’s 22-year-old son sits in jail. He’s accused of stealing a $7 million private jet and flying it from St. Augustine, Fla., to Gwinnett County Airport/Briscoe Field.
Daniel Andrew Wolcott has been held since October in lieu of a $175,000 bond. While he awaits trial, a toothy subplot has emerged. It’s a flap over gums. Back in November, Andrew’s father started asking why inmates didn’t have access to dental floss. He suggested that deputies dispense floss, supervise its use, then trash it.
Nah, said Sheriff Butch Conway.
The jail is short-staffed as it is, he told the elder Wolcott. Besides, used floss is a biohazard.
Andrew has developed gingivitis and gum pockets. Leave that stuff to fester, his dad said, and he might contract full-blown periodontal disease.
Last week, Andrew had an appointment with an outside dentist to remove his wisdom teeth. His father showed up at the dental office with some Vicodin. He says a deputy escort asked him to leave, and wouldn’t let his son eat some fast food before taking the medicine.
After Andrew’s wisdom teeth were removed, Conway had an epiphany. He had Andrew moved to a cell in pod K to bunk with Bart Corbin. He’s the Dacula dentist facing murder charges in the death of his wife.
No way around it. Conway is being a smart aleck. Wolcott’s rash of harsh e-mails and phone calls have pushed him to the brink. He’s even suggested that the sheriff resign. Over floss!
Remember what got us to this point, though. An apparent joyride in an airplane. An expensive airplane. And it allegedly wasn’t Andrew’s first time.
Three years ago, he rented a Piper Cherokee, paid for a local flight out of Briscoe, then abandoned the plane in Chattanooga. His father disputes that claim, saying that inclement weather caused Andrew to ground the plane in Louisville. Wolcott said he paid to have two pilots fly to Kentucky and retrieve the plane.
According to a three-year-old FAA report, he was the pilot of a single-engine Cessna trainer that struck a flock of geese. He was preparing to land the plane in an open field over Alabama but balked at the last moment. The left wing of theaircraft hit a tree. Andrew’s father has said the FAA found no grounds for discipline.
Now, you have this most recent incident.
Andrew apparently stole a jet and flew it to Gwinnett, where he picked up five friends. He flew a plane low on fuel, and experts suspect, deliberately chose not to engage the device that tracks the aircraft’s speed and altitude. He endangered lots of lives — his, his passengers and other people in the air and on the ground. His parents say they are baffled by his actions.
Their actions are just as befuddling. Maybe there’s a connection here.
If my son did something like this, I’m not sure a dentist is the kind of doctor I’d want him to see.
