Thread: Ariz sheriff says he's gay after misconduct claims

Ariz sheriff says he's gay after misconduct claims

By BOB CHRISTIE Associated Press
Posted: 02/18/2012 02:08:22 PM MST

FLORENCE, Ariz.—A sheriff seeking the GOP nomination for an Arizona congressional seat has been forced to confirm he is gay amid allegations of misconduct made by a man with whom he previously had a relationship.

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu on Saturday denied claims he tried to threaten the man, who is Hispanic, with deportation if their past relationship was made public. The man's allegations were first published Friday in The New Times, a Phoenix alternative weekly magazine. An attorney for the man didn't return messages from The Associated Press.

Babeu, a first-term sheriff who has risen to national prominence with his strong opposition to illegal immigration and smuggling, says the accusations were an attempt to hurt his political career.

He vowed to continue his campaign in Arizona's rural western 4th Congressional District seat.

Ariz sheriff says he's gay after misconduct claims - El Paso Times

Scandal Rocks Pinal County Sheriff's Election Campaign

Updated: Saturday, 18 Feb 2012, 2:48 PM MST
Published : Friday, 17 Feb 2012, 9:04 PM MST

FLORENCE, Ariz. - Nearly naked pictures of Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu surfaced online Friday, and now his team is having to answer some very uncomfortable questions.

Nearly naked on a dating site, and his profile says he's seeking other men for sex.

Paul Babeu has been a rising star in political circles. He’s become one of the faces of the anti-illegal immigration fight in Arizona and across the country. And he is currently running for Congress.

But now -- his campaign is caught up in this scandal.

The Phoenix New Times broke the story online. The article, written by reporter Monica Alonso, has now become a public relations nightmare for the sheriff who is running for Congress as a conservation Republican.

Alonzo interviewed a man who claims to be Babeu's former lover, and he makes some very serious allegations against the Pinal County Sheriff.

The New Times article also contains pictures from a gay dating website, where Babeu allegedly posted photos of himself. Sheriff Babeu's attorney issued a statement saying: "We strongly deny the sensationalist headline published by the Phoenix New Times."

We asked if Babeu had any statement about the dating profile pictures posted on the New Times Website. Babeu's attorney said: "No. He believes he'll be judged by his record as a 20-year veteran of the United States Armed Forces, police officer who has saved two lives in the line of duty and responded to thousands of emergencies, and Iraq war veteran."

We tried to contact Paul Babeu directly, but he did not return our calls. We also tried to contact the attorney for the man making the allegations, and we haven't heard back from her yet either.

Statement by Sheriff Paul Babeu for Congress

At 2:30 pm today, the Phoenix New Times contacted the Paul Babeu for Congress campaign via email asking for a response to a long series of allegations for a story they had been working on for two months from an anonymous source.

The allegations referred to an incident that occurred on September 6, 2011, when the campaign’s website, Twitter account, and online financial transaction system were illegally hacked.

A cease and desist letter was sent to the suspected perpetrator who promptly returned access to the campaign.

This individual was asked to sign an agreement refraining from similar activity in the future, but at no time were any threats made.

At that time, the individual’s attorney assured the campaign that he was not interested in causing further trouble, which was accepted as true.

We strongly deny the sensationalist headline published by the Phoenix New Times.

Scandal Rocks Pinal County Sheriff's Election Campaign

I would say merely "gay" is an understatement. Can't see how he is tenable for Congress after this. Let's just hope this sordid crap doesn't hurt our side. He has made himself quite a spokesman for our cause in a very short time.

HA..HA..HA So he's gay..So what? Don't we have laws that protect gay's from hit pieces like this from the NEW TIMES (hypocrites find)...
I see nothing illegal here so what ever the mainstream media makes of it is bull crap as usuall No one should jump ship on Babeu..This is petty reverse PC liberal attack mode.
I'll wait for a Babeu statement and otherwise..So what if he's gay! ? Thinks he's hot and wants a date...ROFL

Originally Posted by airdale

HA..HA..HA So he's gay..So what? Don't we have laws that protect gay's from hit pieces like this from the NEW TIMES (hypocrites find)...
I see nothing illegal here so what ever the mainstream media makes of it is bull crap as usuall No one should jump ship on Babeu..This is petty reverse PC liberal attack mode.
I'll wait for a Babeu statement and otherwise..So what if he's gay! ? Thinks he's hot and wants a date...ROFL

Sorry, I do not support the gay agenda, therefore I cannot support the election of someone into the U.S. Congress that will push such an agenda. This is very unfortunate because immigration is my top issue but the agenda being pushed by homosexuals is definitely in my top five. I cannot, in good conscience, support another potential mouthpiece for the gay agenda in congress, especially when that person probably supports marriage between two people of the same sex. Sorry, right or wrong, that's just how I feel.

Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeu Quits Romney Campaign After Allegations by Gay Lover

The Blaze – 4 mins 55 secs ago...

FLORENCE, Ariz. (AP) — A sheriff seeking the GOP nomination for an Arizona Congressional seat was forced Saturday to confirm he is gay amid allegations of misconduct made by a man with whom he previously had a relationship.

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu on Saturday denied claims he tried to threaten the man, a Mexican immigrant and a former campaign volunteer, with deportation if their past relationship was made public. The man's allegations were first published Friday in The New Times, a Phoenix alternative weekly magazine.

pb2

Babeu, a first-term sheriff who has risen to national prominence with his strong opposition to illegal immigration and smuggling, said the accusations were an attempt to hurt his political career.

He vowed to continue his campaign in Arizona's rural western 4th Congressional District seat, but said he had called presidential candidate Mitt Romney's staff to say he would step down from his post as state campaign co-chair.

"This whole rumor, this whole of idea of who I am in my private life has been shopped around," Babeu told reporters during an hour-long press conference Saturday in front of his sheriff's office. "This was a way, the hook, of how this could be brought out, and to malign and attack a sheriff who does stand for conservative principals, who does enforce the law."

The lawyer for the man, Melissa Weiss-Riner, did not returns calls or emails from The Associated Press on Saturday, but told The New Times that Babeu's attorney and campaign consultant falsely told her client that his visa had expired. Babeu told reporters he believed the man, identified only by his first name Jose, was living in the country legally.

The New Times posted a photo provided by the man of the two embracing. It also posted a cell phone self-portrait of a smiling Babeu in his underwear and another of what appears to be the shirtless sheriff in a bathroom, posted on a gay dating website. The man provided the magazine with photos of himself and Babeu and text messages between the two.

pb1

The congressional district where Babeu is seeking election runs from western Arizona through Prescott and south to take in parts of Pinal County south of Phoenix. Its voters are heavily Republican and generally very conservative.

Babeu issued a sweeping denial of any wrongdoing in front of his headquarters. The press conference was attended by about three dozen high-ranking uniformed deputies, local elected officials and citizens.

"I'm here to say that all the allegations that were in the story were untrue — except for the instance that refers to me as gay," Babeu said. "That's the truth — I am gay."

Babeu, who is not married, said he had been in a relationship with Jose that ended sometime before September. Jose also ran his campaign website and Twitter account, and Babeu said he began posting derogatory items on the sites after their breakup.

Babeu said he had his lawyer contact Jose and demand that he stop and turn over passwords allowing access to the sites. Babeu said the postings and actions amounted to identity theft but that he chose to deal with the matter privately through his lawyer.

Babeu is taking on an incumbent tea party Republican who switched districts and state Sen. Ron Gould, a conservative from northwestern, in Arizona in August's 4th District primary.

Gould said he believed Babeu's posting of pictures on what the lawmaker called a "homosexual hookup website" were a "Congressman Weiner type of moment."

pb3

"The real issue here is the poor judgment of a government official, posting those kinds of photos on a public website," Gould said. "I think that shows a lack of good judgment."

He also said he believes Babeu's sexual orientation would hurt him in the district. Gould sponsored Arizona constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman, an amendment he said drew extremely strong support in the rural counties he and Babeu seek to represent.

Babeu said he has never defined himself based on his ethnicity or sexual orientation, and he would continue to focus on unemployment and the federal deficit in his campaign.

"What I'm trying to do is (be) as forthright as possible, talking about deeply personal, private matters, and trying to be upfront," Babeu said. "The disclosure of that information is something that I feel no American should have to do."

Babeu acknowledged that he has sent and posted the photos, but said they were personal. When asked if posting such pictures on a public website showed poor judgment for a public official, he reiterated that he believed they were personal.

Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeu Quits Romney Campaign After Allegations by Gay Lover - Yahoo! News

Originally Posted by MW

Sorry, I do not support the gay agenda, therefore I cannot support the election of someone into the U.S. Congress that will push such an agenda. This is very unfortunate because immigration is my top issue but the agenda being pushed by homosexuals is definitely in my top five. I cannot, in good conscience, support another potential mouthpiece for the gay agenda in congress, especially when that person probably supports marriage between two people of the same sex. Sorry, right or wrong, that's just how I feel.

Well fortunately most of my generation does not feel the way you feel. One state after another is legalizing gay marriage and it'll just be a matter of time before most of the 50 states have legalized it. It'll be a wonderful day when the entire country has legalized it though. This is ONE of the issues Conservative Republicans are dead wrong on and if they don't conform, they'll need to splinter off from the Republican party or else they'll bring the entire party down with them.

Originally Posted by googler

Well fortunately most of my generation does not feel the way you feel. One state after another is legalizing gay marriage and it'll just be a matter of time before most of the 50 states have legalized it. It'll be a wonderful day when the entire country has legalized it though. This is ONE of the issues Conservative Republicans are dead wrong on and if they don't conform, they'll need to splinter off from the Republican party or else they'll bring the entire party down with them.

I respectfully disagree and that is all I have to say on this specific issue.

That is idiotic. Homosexual indoctrination in order to be considered "normal", in the form of pseudo-"marriage" should always be opposed. Your "generation" is "cool" with it, because you were indoctrinated from an early age, in schools and via mass media. But your comfort with it does not make it the right thing to do. Your generation has also been indoctrinated in the fraud called "man-made global warming". Once again, your comfort with a fraud will not make those who see clearly accept it.

02/18/2012
Anti-Immigration Sheriff Paul Babeu's Gay Affair With Undocumented Immigrant

Sheriff Paul Babeu, of Pinal County, AZ, is one of the most recognized faces of American anti-immigration sentiment. He's been a FOX News regular. He appeared in a John McCain campaign ad calling for a border fence.

In January, Babeu announced his run for the United States Congress in a macho press release headed "It's Time For a New Sheriff In Washington," in which he decried the "400,000 illegal crossings into our state every year."

Well. According to a story broken this week in the Phoenix New Times, Babeu spent much of the last decade in a long-term gay relationship with an undocumented immigrant named Jose, whom Babeu threatened with deportation after their relationship ended.

From The Phoenix New Times:

He says [Babeu's] lawyer Chris DeRose demanded he sign an agreement that he would never breathe a word about the affair. But Jose (New Times is withholding his last name because Babeu and his attorney have challenged his legal status) refused.

The 34-year-old from central Mexico charges that the sheriff's lawyer warned against mentioning the affair with Babeu. DeRose said gossip about Babeu would focus attention on Jose, attention that could result in his deportation, Jose says.

... Babeu didn't respond to requests for comment by publication time for this article, but his attorney, DeRose, says the dispute between Jose and the sheriff concerned Jose's work on Babeu's websites. He says Jose was a former volunteer who hacked into a campaign website.

DeRose didn't immediately address the other claims against him and the sheriff, except to say, "I never threatened to deport anybody" and that "[Babeu's] not threatening anybody."

Babeu and Jose allegedly met on Gay.com in 2006. At some point, Jose began doing web work for Babeu, maintaining his campaign websites, Facebook profile and Twitter feed. Their relationship began to disintegrate after Jose discovered Babeu's profile on Adam4Adam and created a false profile to see if Babeu was amenable to an affair.

After many messages and explicit photos exchanged between Babeu and Jose's alter-ego (including Babeu's self-portrait, above), Jose's alter-ego arranged a date with Babeu at a steak house. (Babeu told Jose's alter-ego to "pack an overnight bag.") Babeu showed up and was shocked to discover Jose in the parking lot.

After the couple split, Jose began posting disparaging remarks about Babeu online. Texts exchanged by the men during that time are both sad and illuminating. From New Times:

Jose shared text messages between him and Babeu with New Times. A September 4, 2011, text from the sheriff reads: "You can never have business after this and you will harm me and many others in the process . . . including yourself & your family."
A couple of minutes later, Babeu followed with: "And you say you have loved me? Papi . . . this is no good."
Jose responded: "Good threats. Wont work. Im already hurt me . . . and you didn't care."
They exchanged more texts on September 6.
Jose: "Dont threat me. Thats illegal. Im just speaking . . . true."
Babeu: "You have crossed the line. Better get an attorney. You brother will also be contacted."

Since then, Jose claims he's been a constant target of harassment by Babeu and his lawyer. New Times writer Monica Alonzo solicited comment from Nancy Jo-Merritt, a "long-time Phoenix immigration attorney":

"If what [Babeu's attorney] says is correct [about Jose's being illegal], either the sheriff had a long relationship with someone he knew was undocumented, while all the time being Mr. Bluster about the border and using it for political gain," or he threatened to deport someone he just broke up with, Merritt says.
"That's just the worst kind of hypocrisy."
She adds that federal immigration-enforcement agents have better things to do than "take care of Babeu's boyfriends."

Read more: Anti-Immigration Sheriff Paul Babeu's Gay Affair With Undocumented Immigrant |Gay News|Gay Blog Towleroad