same poll showed that, while almost nine out of 10 people thought he "tells it like it is", six of 10 thought he should sometimes keep his mouth shut. Lee's widespread popularity gave him some political capital in the face of criticism about his management of the Sheriff's Office. A 1993 study by one government watchdog group lambasted his handling of the Sheriff's Office then-$60 million budget; the same group gave him higher marks in a follow-up study a few years later. The worst political scare of his career had to do with crime and nothing to do with race, his fiscal management, or his controversial remarks. It came in 1985, when voters learned that a convicted rapist named Brian Busby was allowed to wander Jefferson Parish unsupervised during the day, instead of being locked down in state prison elsewhere. Mr. Lee had granted Busby special privileges as a favor to a Parish Council member. Ten days after the disclosure, Busby was sent to the Louisiana State Peniteniary at Angola. Lee's approval rating plunged. A year later, however, after a series of Metairie robberies in which white shoppers were followed to their homes and held up at gunpoint in their driveways by black men, Lee made the following statement, which either almost ended or saved his career: If there are some young blacks driving a car late at night in a predominantly white neighborhood, they will be stopped. There's a pretty good chance they're up to no good. It's obvious two young blacks driving a rinky-dink car in a predominantly white neighborhood—I'm not talking about on the main thoroughfare, but if they're on one of the side streets and they're cruising around—they'll be stopped. Outrage was immediate, and Mr. Lee quickly cancelled the order and apologized as the NAACP called for his resignation. When he ran for his third term the next year, however, Lee failed to win the primary, but defeated Art Lentini in the runoff with 54 percent of the vote. Gambling Lee defended gambling and claimed abuses were no more severe that those with addictions to alcohol and tobacco. He earmarked gambling revenues for jail buildings and maintenance. Without video poker, Lee said that Jefferson Parish would lose nearly $4 million annually in public revenues. Legal career After being honorably discharged from the air force in 1959, Lee returned to Louisiana to manage his father's restaurant, The