W. Virginia’s Youngest Mayor Returns, Ready for Politics, After Prison

Little Junior Ramey, who was West Virginia’s youngest mayor before he was sent to prison, is back in town and planning on getting back into politics.

But James Ramey Jr. III has a family reputation to live down, or live up to, depending on who’s doing the talking.

A lot of folks hereabouts have fond memories of his father, James Ramey Jr., who before his death in a federal penitentiary in 1983 had become known as West Virginia’s greatest con artist.

“He could sell you anything, whether he had it or not,” said Little Junior, who is back running his diner, where the menu features things like chicken and dumplings and corn bread. “He could convince you your black jacket was white.”

Faults Overlooked

Despite making his living as a con man, Junior Ramey was elected time after time as a county constable. The citizens of Wayne also elected his wife, Louise Ramey, a justice of the peace. And they elected his son, James Ramey Jr. III, mayor of the town at the tender age of 22.

Ramey, now 26, resigned that job in 1987 after he pleaded guilty to a tax evasion charge and was sentenced to two years in a federal prison--a sentence that many people consider to have been unfair. Regardless of that, Ramey is back in Wayne, having been released from prison on parole in January, 1988. He plans to run for mayor in June, after he completes his parole.

“I always said that I didn’t know which it was that got me that jail sentence--being Junior Ramey’s son or being the mayor of Wayne,” Ramey said. “Any other person that got caught for what I did wouldn’t have gotten two years in prison. If I’d been an average small business person, they would just have made me file and pay my taxes.”

At first, Ramey said he was reluctant to seek office again, fearing that it was his prominence as the youngest mayor in the state that helped get him a jail sentence.

Doing His Best

“But everybody in this town kept insisting for me to run again,” Ramey said. “And I like being a small town mayor. It’s not like real politics; it’s just trying to do your best to help your community.”

The town of Wayne, population 1,495, has indeed supported the Rameys. When Little Junior pleaded guilty to the tax charge, nearly 1,100 people put their signatures on a petition urging that the young mayor be given probation and community service work for his sentence.

But it’s said the ghost of Junior Ramey raised its head at the younger Ramey’s sentencing. Once a Ramey, always a Ramey, the prosecutor said a day before the 1987 tax filing deadline.

“People can either sit down tomorrow night and do the right thing, or look at Mr. Ramey and feel they’ve been taken,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Joe Savage said in asking U.S. District Judge Charles Haden to impose a jail term on the young mayor.

“The legacy of Junior Ramey apparently remains with us today,” Savage told Haden, who also had sentenced the famous con artist.

Many Juniors

This raft of Rameys tends to confuse outsiders. After all, James Ramey Jr. had eight wives and 13 children. One of the sons was named James Robert Ramey, another was named James Ramey Jr. II and was known as Big Junior. Thus, James Ramey Jr. III, the youngest, came to be called Little Junior.

Although he never really asked for an explanation of the muddled names, Little Junior has a pretty good idea why his father named his sons as he did.

“It probably had to do with confusing the IRS,” Ramey explains. “And if somebody came in here looking for Junior Ramey, we could always say he wasn’t here.”

And somebody was always looking for Junior Ramey.

“He was good at what he done, no question,” Ramey said of his father. “Everybody here knew what my father did for a living, but he always took his money from the rich people. The people of this town always liked my father, and the people he beat out usually were looking for something for nothing.”

‘Money-Cranking Machine’

One of Ramey’s most famous cons was selling people on the idea of a “money-cranking machine,” with which the lucky owner could turn $1 bills to $10 bills: Just put in a dollar bill, turn the crank, and out comes a green portrait of Alexander Hamilton, complete with serial numbers and seals. In another con, Ramey sold his mark a process for making $20 bills in a bathtub, by soaking two real bills in chemicals and pressing them against a blank piece of paper.

“It was usually just one crook taking off another crook--like selling somebody counterfeit money that didn’t exist,” Ramey said.

“He was taking off two and three a week, making thousands and thousands of dollars. But he had to keep looking over his shoulder for people coming after him.

“I know that if I lost $20,000 to a con man, I’d probably shoot him.”

Junior Ramey also enlisted his children in his schemes.

Teaches Him Everything

“I loved my father, don’t get me wrong,” Little Junior added. “At 13 or 14, he taught me how to do everything, run all the cons. He knew they couldn’t do anything to me, because I was under age.”

It frequently meant life on the run for much of the Ramey family. In 1974, Junior Ramey was arrested in Phoenix after an Alabama coin dealer accused him of selling him a nonexistent coin collection. The arrest came, according to Little Junior, after a scene right out of the movies.

“They chased us through the desert with a helicopter, and he tore up three FBI cars as well as our car before they stopped us,” Ramey said. “Then, somehow, he talked that Arizona judge into setting his bail at just $20,000. He was out the next day and gone.”

Throughout his colorful career, wherever Junior Ramey landed, his family went along. Little Junior has been to every state except Hawaii. When his father was sentenced to prison in Lexington, Ky., for 18 months, the family pulled up stakes and moved to Kentucky to be close.

Many Hours Together

“I missed three days out of 18 months of seeing my father every single day,” Ramey said. “I was there Monday through Friday from 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m., and on Saturdays and Sundays from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.--every single day.”

Despite an early start as a junior con artist, most people in this area say Little Junior Ramey is an exemplary citizen.

“After I turned 18, my father wanted me to go straight,” Ramey said.

So he took over the Pioneer Drive-Inn, once owned by his father, and made it into one of the booming businesses of Wayne.

“The tax charge, that was the only thing I was still doing that my dad told me to do,” Ramey said. “Most of my brothers have been in and out of jail all their lives.”

Ramey said the investigation of his failure to file tax returns started when one of his half-brothers, former Kermit Police Chief David Ramey, was being investigated for selling drugs and tried to get prosecutors to go easy on him by steering them in other directions.

When Little Junior was subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury, he said, “I went in and told them I was guilty. I signed that plea agreement that day.”

‘Made Something of Himself’

“He’s the only one of that whole family who’s made something of himself,” said James E. Chambers, a respected Huntington lawyer whose son and law partner is the speaker of the state House of Delegates.

Representing Ramey at his sentencing on the tax charge, Chambers--who also had represented the elder Ramey in the past--told the judge that young Ramey had “pulled himself up by his own bootstraps from the environment in which he was raised.”

Coming back to Wayne after his prison sentence wasn’t hard, Ramey said. “The people of this town have supported me unbelievably. And in the last year, our business has really boomed.”

Town in Good Shape

He’s considering running against John Wesley Mills, who was appointed mayor after Little Junior was sentenced. When he resigned after his first stint as mayor, Ramey said, “This town had a new fleet of cars, it was $28,000 to the good and didn’t owe anybody anything.”

But his months in prison--even though it was a Florida camp “with white lines on the sidewalks instead of fences”--taught him the lesson his father never learned, Ramey said.

“I feel like he should have learned his lesson when he first went to prison,” he said. “I did. I know I’ll never take another chance at going back to prison--and I was at a country club.”