A newly released police report shows state Sen. Jeff Kruse gave conflicting stories to law enforcement and the press about what he alleges was an attempted extortion campaign against him.

Kruse, a Roseburg Republican, told The Oregonian/OregonLive and other news media Monday he is the victim of a possible blackmail campaign related to a YouTube video, which shows him shirtless in his home, chatting with a topless woman. A YouTube description purports that the clip shows him masturbating, but the highly-pixelated video does not.

His explanations to police about whether he in fact fielded a demand for money and why he engaged in the video chat differed from the account he gave reporters.

Kruse's claims about the video are the latest in a bizarre turn of events for the lawmaker, who was first elected in 1996. Kruse has also come under fire this year for reports of inappropriate touching by two of his female Senate colleagues and for smoking in his Capitol office. He has denied inappropriate touching and cast the allegations against him as politically motivated.

When asked about the compromising video, Kruse told The Oregonian/OregonLive that he chatted with women online because he was searching for a relationship. He also said no one tried to extort money from him.

Records show Kruse told a different story to an Oregon State Police trooper -- that he had, in fact, faced demands for money from scammers and that he was chatting online with women as part of his own investigation into the tactics of digital schemers.

EXTORTION CLAIMS VARY

According to an Oct. 31 police report, released to The Oregonian/OregonLive Wednesday via public records request, law enforcement first learned about the video of Kruse through Betsy Imholt, chief of staff to Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem.

A trooper then interviewed Kruse at the State Police office in Roseburg. He told the trooper that extortionists demanded money from him -- twice.

Kruse told police the person who surreptitiously recorded the video of him shirtless threatened to send it to his Senate colleagues "if he didn't pay up."

Kruse, 66, said he never paid. Then, the video appeared online. He did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

Kruse also told police of a second incident where he "received a video of himself with his shirt off that had been edited to remove his trousers and add a nude male lower half." Kruse said the sender demanded money or else they'd forward the video to his children, according to the police report.

IMPROMPTU INVESTIGATION

Kruse told The Oregonian/OregonLive he signed up for online chat sites to meet women. He told police he was seeking a relationship -- but said he was also conducting his own investigation into online scams.

According to the police report, Kruse said he'd heard several of his constituents had been duped into fake relationships online, then bilked for money once the scammer revealed they'd captured sexually explicit images of the victim. Such a scam is called "sextortion."

Kruse told police he'd been "compiling a long list of folks who'd fallen victim to these schemes" and hoped to write legislation cracking down on the scammers. Kruse said he'd been gathering evidence to take to the state Justice Department.

When police asked Kruse about the grainy video in which he appears shirtless, he said he wasn't sure who he had talked to, since he'd had similar chats with more than a dozen people. Kruse also said he was not masturbating. Instead, he said he was "pretending to masturbate" and "acting" as part of collecting evidence to take to the Justice Department.

Kruse said he fell victim to the scam "because of the cleverness of the criminals," according to the police report. He said he believes that scammers were able to try to extort money from him because he registered for online chat accounts using his real name and contact information.

Police closed the case without identifying a suspect.

-- Gordon R. Friedman

503-221-8209; @GordonRFriedman