A Mayor's Secret Life Jolts a Northwest City
May 8, 2005
By TIMOTHY EGAN
nytimes.com
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.
...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.
...The newspaper found that Mayor West had "led a secret life for 25 years," Mr. Smith wrote in a note explaining the paper's tactics to readers, and "he has been trolling the Internet for young lovers while serving as mayor of Spokane, offering gifts and favors."
...In one of the online chats that the newspaper recorded, Mayor West talked about his ambiguous feelings.
"Remember, I'm very closeted. No one knows I like guys," he wrote. "It's just that the openly gay guys are a little over the top for me. I don't really like the in-your-face attitude some guys have. And the massive political agenda either."
Mayor West, a former Army paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division, spent 20 years in the Legislature, rising to the highest post in the Senate when Republicans had control. He has opposed virtually all gay rights measures, and once insisted that a resolution praising women of all races and sexual orientation - on International Women's Day - would not pass if the reference to orientation was not taken out.
In one of his last exchanges with the fictional boy just before the newspaper stopped contact a few weeks ago, Mayor West mentioned his political future.
"Some day I may run for governor," he wrote, "and this would be bad if you know what I mean."
...Many people on conservative talk radio shows have expressed a sense of betrayal.
"I've never seen such a reaction from callers," said Dan Mitchinson, the news and program director of the Big Talker 1510-KGA, an AM station.
Many residents of Spokane and associates of Mayor West seemed fascinated by a man who seemed to live two lives.
"We seem to have a Jekyll and Hyde personality in our mayor," said Cherie Rodgers, the longest-serving member of the City Council. She called on the mayor to resign.
"His credibility is shot," said Ms. Rodgers, who described herself as a political independent who was endorsed by Republicans. "He was using city computers in his office to lure people to have sex with him."
She said the accusations had diminished the power of the office at a crucial time, with budget cuts and a slow business climate. "We've already had children's groups request that the mayor not be there when they tour City Hall," she said. |
