Why did he drink so much?

Because he’s a degenerate. Just an absolute degenerate. Spent every waking moment outside of work and sleep knocking back drinks masturbating on-cam, and haunting bars/swinger’s clubs for action. This is after he blew up his 30-year marriage for a lady at Church that Jim and his wife both knew. Just a shitty human being.

Supposedly Jim was big in the local jazz music scene in Cincy, or at least was pretty well known. He was a music teacher by day but at night he had a band going with his wife in it and playing all over the area, (Jim brags about this when he says “I’ve played every Country Club in Cincinnati.”). After Jim cheated on his wife and blew up his marriage he was on the outs with all of his friends and with fewer and fewer people to talk to and more and more feelings of loneliness to suppress he went from being a regular drinker who occasionally has a few too many to a full-blown alky.

If you knew that bears were going to be looking for your dick that night, you'd drink a lot, too.

Police are called bears in some states, apparently. Had no idea until hearing that phone call.

Jim had more than just “a couple drinks”, before hitting the road. Listen to his phone call with the decoy and you can tell that Jim has had a few too many. You’re right, though, that Jim was drying out the whole drive over there and his arrest should have been a somewhat sobering experience for him but it takes 24 hours to get alcohol completely out of your system so Jim still had plenty of liquor coursing through his veins during his interrogation.

He DOES seem to sober up a lot, though. He can hardly talk straight in the call, is slurring his speech with the cop who arrested him, is stammering and stuttering at the start of his interrogation, yet the further into the interrogation you get, the clearer Jim becomes, the less he slurs his words, and so on.

If I had to guess, I’d say that Jim had 6 or 8 vodkatonics, (heavy on the vodka), before hitting the road. Could have been just “a couple” if he’d been drinking from a quart jar. It took a while for him to sober up and imagining him waking up fully sober in the Campbell County Jail and realizing that he’s in there for attempted child molestation puts a smile on my face and I needed that today.

It’s been asked a lot on here why Jim wasn’t charged with drunk driving when he was OBVIOUSLY over the legal limit, (0.8 is the BAC limit and that’s 2 drinks an hour for the average person). By Jim’s own admission to the decoy on the phone and the cops in the interrogation he’d had at least that many in the time between when he’d gotten home from UC and when he’d hopped in the car to drive over to fuck Cheyenne. Any cop will tell you that, same as when you know a Pred is lying when they begin every sentence with “Hawnestly”, when they tell you they’ve had “just a couple drinks”, that means they’ve had a lot more. I mean, this is common knowledge. It was a running gag on Trailer Park Boys for the entire run of the show. My guess is that Jim was feeling no pain as he was being arrested, and the effects were quickly wearing off between when he was picked up and when the interrogation started. By the end of the whole thing I think Jim was a lot more sober than he was at the start

My guess is that the cops didn’t charge Jim with DWI because they didn’t have to. Jim got bailed out, hired an attorney. That attorney quickly negotiated a plea, and Jim took it. If Jim hadn’t done so, if he’d have fought the charges, they’d have probably piled on every charge they could. Jim only ever pled guilty in Federal Court to one count of violating 18 USC 2423 (b) - Travel With Intent To Engage In Illicit Sexual Conduct With A Child. He was never charged with any crime by the State of Kentucky at all, not for DWI or attempted statutory rape. I’d guess that they kept all of that in reserve to hold over Jim’s head if he attempted to fight his charges same as they did with Lorne and pretty much everyone else who ever ends up in plea deal negotiations, “Take this deal or we will pile every possible charge on you we can and when you’re found guilty in court we’ll push for the max possible sentence and instead of doing 5 years like in the deal you’ll end up doing 10 or more and you’ll still have the same restrictions when you get out”. That’s why so few fought it and so many that did got a LAWT more time than they otherwise would have like MHS.

One more little detail, in Jim’s sentencing documents it shows what his conditions upon release will be and one of his conditions is “No Alcohol”. Not “Alcohol in moderation” like Lorne had until he fucked that up by getting drunk and going psycho on Nikki. What I’m saying is that there was a reason for that being a condition straight from the jump. The Court was aware that there was some issue with alcohol pertaining to this case.

Oh okay, I didn't know about that. Thanks for the info.

I’d be interested in a timeline as well. I can tell you that if you look at Jim’s full interrogation video at around 1:54:00 Kathryn Reed asks for the correct time and then tells Rauch that it’s 1:50 am. That means that Nitschke was asking Jim if he was just out driving at around midnight so it’s probably safe to assume that Jim entered that room at around 11:30-11:45. We know from the original segment with Jim’s arrest footage that it was fully dark outside when Jim was pulled over and arrested and that he’d been driving for about an hour before he was pulled over down the street from the sting house. Jim’s last text messages with the decoy were around 8:30pm Eastern time so assuming the 1 hour drive it would look like Jim got on the phone and into the car about 8:45, drove around for an hour before getting pulled over around 9:45, spent 2 hours getting arrested/transported/processed/whatever before entering the interrogation room about 11:45pm and facing off against Reed/Nitschke. 2 hours later, Reed/Nitschke are finished with Jim and at some point after 2:15-2:30ish Jim is transported to the Campbell County Jail to be booked in. I’m guessing that he probably arrived there after 3:30am and probably didn’t hit a bunk until 5 or 6am and whether he tried to sleep as the rest of the inmates ate their breakfasts or if he ran straight to the collect-only phone in the pod desperately trying to get a hold of family to try and get help getting out, we don’t know, but I’d sure love to!

Jim was pulled over right around the corner from the sting house. We’ve never gotten an explanation WHY Jim was stopped so close to his destination but I’ve always assumed that since Jim took so long to get over there, that his arrival was going to conflict with the arrival/removal of other Preds.
Jim was arrested on a Thursday. April 12, 2007. He didn’t hit the Jail until Friday morning around breakfast and I’m assuming he sat in there with no bond until Monday morning when he was finally hauled before a judge to have bond set so his kids could spring him. No further details on his arrest other than what can be gleaned from the footage of his arrest shown on the Bowling Green episode except that he was originally charged with 2 State of KY charges “UNLAW USE OF ELEC MEAN TO IND MIN TO ENG IN SEX OR PROH ACT”, “UNLAWFUL TRANSACTION W MINOR, <16 YRS OLD 1ST DEG”, and also had a “FEDERAL DETAINER". On Aug 10, 2007, Jim pled guilty in Federal Court to a single count of violating 18 USC 2423 (b) - Travel With Intent To Engage In Illicit Sexual Conduct With A Child as per his plea agreement. Jim reported for prison on Jan 7, 2008, less than 2 weeks after the Bowling Green episode featuring Jim hit the airwaves in Dec 28, 2007. Jim was released from prison into supervision on Feb 17, 2011.

His bond was $100k cash only according to the Cincy newspaper, thats what the bond was for all the Preds caught in the Highland Heights sting. KY doesn’t have bondsmen that’ll spring you for 10%, someone had to bring a $100k check to Campbell Co KY to spring Jim or get a lawyer to convince a judge to change the bail to $100k cash or property so Jim could put his house on the line to get out. Newspaper also confirms that it was Monday morning before the men caught in the sting were brought before a judge to have bail set.

www.newspapers.com/clip/65759209/article-detailing-james-clifford-rauch/?xid=637

One MORE thing. Jim’s surrender date being in January rather than when he pled and was sentenced in August was part of his plea agreement. Jim’s Lawyer got the Feds to agree to that and it wasn’t a huge concession or an uncommon one but I guess Jim just wanted the time to get ready and wrap things up and just delay the inevitable. If it had been me I’d have wanted to get it over with but that’s just me. Anyway, he stayed out long enough to see the Bowling Green episode and even if he might not have watched it, (and I’m sure he did), everyone he knew watched it.

Yeah, he got bailed out at some point, and we know that because at his sentencing his bond agreement was extended to his Report Date at FCI Ashland so he was free on bond at that time.

Jim was one of the few Preds with some amount of resources. He kept the family home on Brandy Way in the divorce and that was worth more than his bond amount even back then. He had his retirement pension from West Clermont, so on and so forth. I imagine that he called his son and daughters collect from the jail Friday morning begging them to find some way to get him out, and after running around in circles for a while they finally retained an attorney that explained to them that there was no way that Jim was getting out before Monday but that they better start making arrangements to get bail together. Then after bail was set on that next Monday, Jim’s kids would already have the cash/promissory note for the house ready to give the County Clerk. Jim was probably sprung Monday evening or Tuesday morning and he stayed free until he had to turn himself in at Ashland that next January. Oh to be in the car to witness Jim’s blubbering self-pity party as he’s driven by one or more of his kids to Federal Prison.