‘Godfather of Heavy Metal’ Faces Charges After Running for Mayor as a Convicted Sex Offender

The self-proclaimed Godfather of Heavy Metal didn’t run for Arlington mayor in early 2021 “to become a poster boy” for fighting a ruling that convicted felons couldn’t run for office after they finished their sentences, he said.

A convicted sex offender, Jerry Warden had already spent 15 years in prison for a conviction the 1990s for aggravated kidnapping with intent to violate or abuse the victim sexually, according to the Texas Public Sex Offender Registry. The victim was 24 at the time.

Warden had spent the past 13 years since his release from prison trying to rebuild his heavy metal brand with talent agency Elmo Jones Productions by promoting bands at local venues around Tarrant County. He even tried to establish a Heavy Metal Museum in Arlington after he trademarked the name in 2014.

At 62, Warden said he didn’t want “to start a bunch of shit” when he put his name on the ballot in early February 2021 but was “naive and stupid enough” to run for mayor in Arlington “because I love the city.”

But ignorance of the law is no defense in court, as Warden said his attorney told him. So, now Warden is facing a Class A misdemeanor charge and possibly a fine of up to $4,000 and a year in jail, in part, for defying Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s 2019 opinion, which stated that convicted felons could not seek public office even if they have a right to vote.

“Subsection 141.001(a)(4) of the Election Code provides that to be eligible as a candidate for public office a person must ‘have not been finally convicted of a felony from which the person has not been pardoned or otherwise released from the resulting disabilities,’” Paxton wrote on May 22, 2019.

An opinion is “a written interpretation of existing law,” according to the attorney general’s website, and “opinions cannot create new provisions in the law or correct unintended, undesirable effects of the law.”

Paxton himself has been facing felony charges on securities fraud for nearly eight years now. He “stands accused of convincing people to invest in a company without disclosing that he would benefit from the deals,” The Dallas Morning News reported in an Aug. 5, 2022, story.

In Warden’s case, neither a pardon nor a commutation has happened. As the Observer pointed out in a March 23, 2021, report, the Texas Department of Public Safety still lists Warden as a lifetime registrant on the sex offender registry website. It’s a fact that led his opponent, current Arlington Mayor Jim Ross, to threaten to sue him in early 2021.

“As soon as they [threatened to] sue me and showed me that Paxton ruling, I never participated in any events but, in the end, couldn’t take my name off the ballot even though I was ruled ineligible to run,” Warden said.

Warden finished in last place with 1.32% of the vote. About 330 people voted for him.

“I got slapped in the face, man,” Warden said.

The Tarrant County district attorney offered him a plea deal of 40 days of community service after Warden was arrested on Nov. 14 in Quanah, Texas, on a warrant accusing him of fraud or tampering with a government document. He posted a $1,500 bond the next morning.

Warden said he was on his way to Colorado when he was arrested.

“I like Colorado a lot, man. It’s a groovy state,” Warden said. “I’ve been an avid pot smoker all my life. It’s a hell of a freedom there.”

Anna Hensley Williams, a spokeswoman for the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office, said that it doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

And, unlike Paxton, Warden is determined to fight his fraud charge because he doesn’t want to quit smoking weed to do community service since he uses it for medicinal purposes. He said he is also disabled and unable to perform physical labor.

Warden may have been charged with fraud partly because of what Arlington City Secretary Alex Busken told the News in a March 4, 2021, story. Busken pointed out that Warden had signed a sworn statement that read, “I have not been finally convicted of a felony for which I have not been pardoned or had my full rights of citizenship restored by other official action.”

A trial date hasn’t been set as of writing.

“My attorney told me I was crazy to go to trial and fight this case when they are offering me 40 days community service [because] I could get up to a year in the county jail,” Warden says. “He thinks it is a slam dunk case. Me, I tell him [if] I can reach one or two of those jurors … If I can’t reach them for an acquittal, I hate to think that a jury would give me the max [sentence].

“I’ve been home for 13 years and 3 months without getting into any trouble. … Does it really help citizens to put me in jail? I will cost them in health care.”