KYLE GREEN The Roanoke Times

William Smith is running for the House of Delegates seat in the 19th District as a candidate of the Constitution Party.

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BUCHANAN -- By any measure of politics, the experience that House of Delegates candidate William Smith brings to the campaign season is unusual: A dozen years ago, he was convicted of pandering, or helping men hook up with prostitutes.

Now, as the 37-year-old Constitution Party candidate from Buchanan tries to unseat the entrenched 19th District incumbent, independent Lacey Putney, Smith finds that he can't run away from his past. He can only hope voters are forgiving.

"We were absolutely certain it was going to come out," Smith said of his felony conviction. "But it doesn't change the message I'm trying to send. It doesn't change what I will do when I'm elected."

Talking about his past now, he added, might even help his campaign: "If I'm being open and transparent about something like this, think of the transparency I'll bring to Richmond."

For the past few weeks, some residents of the 19th District, which includes parts of Botetourt and Bedford counties, have been clucking about Smith's arrest in 1997, when the former James River High School linebacker worked at Roanoke's Shooters 44 lingerie business. While Smith has been wearing down shoe leather going door to door to talk about abortion, gun rights and big government, Putney said he has been fielding queries from constituents who want to talk about Smith's criminal past.

"You'd be amazed at the people who have contacted me about it from all over the district because they've seen on his Web site that he's big on family values," Putney said. "But I'm not going to get into it. I don't like anything that looks like it's negative campaigning."

Smith, a cattle farmer and employee of ITT Night Vision, was 25 when he worked at Shooters 44, a Williamson Road establishment known for the pink fluorescent sign out front promoting "Live Girl Models."

Shooters 44 billed itself as a place where men could watch women model lingerie, then buy the lingerie that caught their fancy. But in April 1997, two undercover detectives, suspecting the place was a front for prostitution, asked if they could buy more than lingerie. According to police, that's when Smith told them he would bring two of the women to a motel for them, at a total cost of $325.

Later that year Smith was convicted of felony pandering and sentenced to six years in jail, suspended after a year. He also was fined $300.

"The truth of it is, at that point in my life, I lived ... I can't even describe it," Smith said. "No direction. I had no direction."

Today, Smith is a conservative husband, father of three children and member of the Springwood Baptist Church. He abandoned the Republican Party two years ago in favor of the Constitution Party, which bills itself in campaign literature as "the only party that acknowledges the sovereignty of God and believes that our rights come from God not government. We are committed to returning our country to government under the Constitution which is based on Biblical principles."

Smith, who had his voting rights restored by Gov. Tim Kaine, said he doesn't talk about his time at Shooters 44, but added that he's never denied it either. "This was not something that I've kept hidden, but it's not something I come out and say when I introduce myself and shake hands," he said. "People all around knew. This is Buchanan -- there are very few secrets here."

Scott Wolk, chairman of the Constitution Party of the Roanoke Valley and a friend of Smith's for 10 years, said voters shouldn't hold Smith's past against him. "He has become a very genuinely honorable man," said Wolk.

Doug Gimbert, chairman of the Botetourt Republican Party, said Smith's felonious past will likely remain fodder for the gossip mill, but doubts it will become a campaign issue -- partly because Smith is generally considered a marginal candidate against Putney, who has been in the General Assembly since 1962.

The Democrat in the race for Putney's seat, Bedford County businessman Lewis Medlin, could not be reached for comment.

Smith said voters don't want to talk about his past -- they're upset about taxes and expanding government. Smith said he doesn't think of himself as an underdog, even though Putney took three out of every four votes cast in his 2007 race against Medlin and has the backing of district Republicans.

"I sincerely believe the Lord has forgiven me for the mistakes I've made in the past ... " Smith said. "And I truly believe the mistakes I've made in the past are just that -- mistakes I've made in the past."