FLORENCE, Ariz. — 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.
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.
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