A Mayor’s Secret Life Jolts a Northwest City
SPOKANE, Wash., May 6 – Over the last three months, Mayor James E. West of Spokane, one of the most powerful politicians in this state, carried on an online exchange — full of mutual compliments and often overtly sexual — with someone who said he was a 17-year-old high school senior. In time, the mayor, 54, revealed his identity, and said he had lots of sports memorabilia he could give the boy from his office. As they prepared to meet for the first time, the mayor professed his nervousness, and his caution.
“Guys like you don’t come along very often and I want it to last,” the mayor wrote. “Am I crazy here?”
The two never met. The high school senior was a fiction, created by The Spokesman-Review, a Spokane newspaper, as part of a three-year investigation into whether Mayor West, a Republican, used his authority to have sex with boys and young men.
The mayor has denied the most serious accusations by the paper this week: that he molested two boys more than 25 years ago when he was a sheriff’s deputy and Boy Scout leader. But he acknowledged having the online conversations and said he had “relationships” with men.
People in the state were shocked, in part because Mayor West is a staunch opponent of gay rights, and recently threatened to veto a measure passed by the City Council that would grant benefits to domestic partners. He once promoted a bill in the Legislature to outlaw teenage sex, gay or straight.
The mayor insists he will never step down despite calls for his resignation from one council member. On Friday, Mayor West walked around a downtown riverfront park, refusing requests for interviews, and saying he had another 1,149 days to serve.
The Spokesman-Review, once known as a stodgy voice of business and political interests in this city of 200,000, surprised many here with the ferocity of its coverage of a man it repeatedly endorsed for office.
There are no criminal charges or civil suits pending against Mayor West for sexual misconduct. But The Spokesman-Review, in its extensive report on Thursday, said Mayor West had abused his positions of public trust over the last 25 years to have sex with boys and young men, and called him a hypocrite for promoting an anti-gay agenda. The paper quoted two men by name, both with criminal records, who said they had been sexually molested by Mayor West more than 20 years ago.
The paper also said that as Mayor West prepared to run for mayor in 2003 he urged one of those men, who was in jail, not to go public with abuse accusations. Mayor West denied making any specific threat, but said he may have contacted the man.
Read full article: NY Times
Recently suspended Memorial Middle School music teacher and Eatontown Borough Council-man John J. Collins was expected to be released on Read more
JUNE 20 — Trouble just seems to follow this William Kennedy Smith guy. The Kennedy clan member, who was acquitted of Read more
The heat is being turned up on the U.S. Air Force Academy over its alleged treatment of dozens of female Read more
For more than 30 years, the media has covered the life and career of Bill Cosby. In January, sexual-assault allegations Read more
