From jail cell to air chair

Former U.S. Rep. Bob Ney is now holding down a weekday afternoon talk-slot on Moundsville’s WVLY (1370). His first show aired Monday.

Ney, a Republican from Bellaire, Ohio, who served 17 months in federal prison on corruption charges, can be heard from 1 to 3 p.m.

The Politico website notes that Ney joins other ex-cons on the air, like Watergate conspirator G. Gordon Liddy, “who went on to conservative talk radio superstardom.”

Ney resigned from his seat in Ohio’s 18th Congressional District in November 2006 and pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to defraud the government in relation to a bribery scandal. He was released last August.

He may be best remembered as the congressman who insisted that French fries be renamed “freedom fries” after the French government refused to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

According to WTRF-TV, Ney jokingly called his year-and-a-half stint as his residency in “The Bush Administration’s Federal Housing Program in Morgantown.”