Boston: A Maine-based attorney who released information in 2000 about President George W Bush's drunken driving conviction was arrested on Tuesday after he dressed up as al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and waved a fake gun at traffic.
Police in South Portland, Maine, arrested Thomas Connolly, 49, of Scarborough, Maine, and charged him with criminal threatening. He was released on bail, local officials said.
Lt Todd Bernard said the police department received calls about a man wearing Middle Eastern garb and an Osama mask and carrying fake dynamite standing along an interstate highway.
When police arrived, they saw Connolly holding a gun.
"They ordered him to drop the weapon several times and he eventually complied," Bernard said. It turned out the gun was fake, Bernard said.
In a phone interview, Connolly said he'd been trying to protest a planned change in local tax rules. "I didn't expect to be arrested," he said. "Obviously I touched a post-9/11 nerve."
Days before the 2000 presidential election, Connolly released information about Bush's 1976 drunken driving conviction.
The Bush campaign said Democratic "dirty tricks" were behind the disclosure that at age 30 Bush had been arrested for drunken driving in Kennebunkport, Maine, pleaded guilty, paid a fine and had his license suspended for 30 days.
Connolly, a Democrat, ran for governor in Maine in 1998. South Portland, Maine, is located about 161 km northeast of Boston.
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