Reached by email, Space's chief of staff neither confirmed nor denied the voice belonged to Space, calling it a "a lousy recording" that has "no provenance." | AP Photo Confederate flag assemblyman recorded making crude comments about opponent

A state assemblyman from Sussex County already facing intense criticism for posing with a Confederate flag refers to one of his opponents as a “bitch” three times in a 33-second recording from August obtained by POLITICO New Jersey.

Assemblyman Parker Space, a Republican, and his running mate, Hal Wirths, are being challenged by Democrats Kate Matteson and Gina Trish in the heavily Republican 24th legislative district, which includes Morris, Sussex and Warren counties.


In the recording, several people can be heard speaking with a man who multiple sources identified as Space after a drug awareness event in Sussex County.

“We can all agree — all of us, all agree — that we don’t want hatred in our world,” Democratic state Senate candidate Jennifer Hamilton says in the conversation. Hamilton is running in the same district as Space.

“I don’t want hatred in our world. Jill, she doesn’t want hatred in our world. Kate doesn’t want hatred in our world,” Hamilton says on the recording.

“Kate’s a bitch,” Space says. “I don’t know about Gina, I’ve never talked to her. And you can put that on the record. She is [an] elitist 1 percenter [inaudible] who’s a bitch. Gina, I’ve never met. I can’t say anything bad about her. But Kate, I can. Because I know she’s a bitch.”

No last names are mentioned in the recording. Space’s wife is named Jill.

Reached by phone Tuesday evening, Hamilton — who said she did not record the conversation and was not eager to talk about it — nevertheless confirmed her role in it and that the man’s voice was Space's.

James Santonastaso, a Sussex County Democratic committee member, said he made the recording.

Santonastaso — who was not POLITICO’s original source for the recording — said he “sat on it” for a while because he wasn’t sure if he wanted it made public, and he wanted to make sure it would be legal to release it.

“First I sat on it because I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I wasn’t sure it should see the light of day. But the more I thought about it the more I thought it was unacceptable for a man to speak this way and be allowed to go unchecked,” Santonastaso said in a phone interview Tuesday evening. “It’s one thing if you’re a private citizen, but this is an elected official, somebody who represents this district. He needs to be held accountable for his own actions.”

A call to Space’s home was not returned. Reached by email, Space's chief of staff, Lou Crescitelli, neither confirmed nor denied the voice belonged to Space, calling it a "a lousy recording" that has "no provenance."

"I am not going to dignify this with my time until you produce the accusation from Democrat Senate candidate Hamilton," Crescitelli said.

Hamilton said the exchange occurred after an Aug. 31 vigil in Newton for overdose awareness. That was shortly after Space made headlines for posting a photo on Facebook of him standing in front of a Confederate flag at a Hank Williams Jr. concert in New York and writing, “Hope no one is offended! LOL." The flag, which has a picture of Williams in its center, includes the words “If the south would’ve won, we would’ve had it made” — a reference to one of Williams’ songs. The text was only partially visible in the photo Space shared.

Space has threatened legal action against activists he said were hurting his business, Space Farms Zoo and Museum, in the wake of the flag flap.

“This was Parker Space venting his frustration about what he perceived as an attack on his family business. And that was the premise of the conversation. That was the build-up to that moment,” Hamilton said. “I don’t feel I need to be brought into peoples’ personal disagreements or battles with one another in terms of their personality conflicts. I think it’s clear from what we’ve seen in our local media that there is conflict between the two of them [Space and Matteson].”

Matteson said she had heard rumors about the conversation with Space, but had not heard a recording until POLITICO shared it with her.

“Yeah, it’s Parker Space. I know his voice by now,” Matteson said.

“This is actually why I ran, to be honest,” Matteson said. “I ran because of the sentiment that was enveloping the state and the country against women. I had heard things about the assemblyman ... and I know what his legislative record is. And his legislative record on women is absolutely horrible.”

Matteson compared Space’s words to President Donald Trump's comments about women during last year's presidential campaign. Matteson, who said she's on leave from her job as a paralegal to run for office and is married to a physician, also disputed Space's characterization of her as an "elitist."

“I have four daughters, so when I heard the kind of rhetoric coming out of the last presidential election, which is almost exactly like this, I knew I had to go out and fight for this kind of thing because I could not have my daughters being raised in this kind of environment,” she said.

Although Space is not identified on the recording, the voice sounds similar to clips of him found on YouTube.

Space has had many brushes with controversy.

He also has a Confederate flag tattoo on his arm with the words “Good ol’ boys!” which his chief of staff told POLITICO refers to the old "Dukes of Hazard" television show. Space was the only member of the Assembly to abstain on a vote condemning Confederate flag displays in the aftermath of the South Carolina church massacre by a white supremacist who often posed with the flag. And his family farm and petting zoo has had a line of groundhogs named after Confederate general Stonewall Jackson. At a 2015 debate, Space praised unregistered guns because when “liberals take over everything they are not going to be able to track you down and take your weapons away from you.” He also called for hanging drug dealers "at high noon."