Arizona Republicans block vote to expel Rep. David Stringer after sex charges surface

The Arizona House of Representatives on Monday refused to vote on a motion to expel Rep. David Stringer, a conservative lightning rod, over revelations that he was charged with sex offenses in 1983.

Stringer was charged with several offenses, at least one of which related to child pornography, according to Maryland court records published Friday by the Phoenix New Times.

Stringer, R-Prescott, already faced calls for his resignation last year after he made a series of racist comments that made international headlines and created a public relations nightmare for his hometown.

House Minority Co-Whip Reginald Bolding introduced the motion calling for Stringer's expulsion. He said lawmakers were "shocked" by Friday's report.

But Republicans stepped in and instead voted to recess their session, saying the issue was best addressed by the House Ethics Committee. They prevailed on a 31-28 party-line vote.

"We are enabling this behavior by voting to recess and not showing leadership," said Bolding, D-Phoenix. "We have the ability to move on to the pressing issues that matter to this state and get back to regular order."

Rep. Kelly Townsend, R-Mesa, filed an ethics complaint against Stringer on Monday. She said delaying the expulsion vote was about allowing the investigation to move forward.

"If we continue to go straight to expelling a member, one day it might be one of you," she said. "And you would prefer, I would think, to be able to have the opportunity to go through that process."

Townsend pushed for last year's vote to expel former Rep. Don Shooter, R-Yuma, who was accused of sexually harassing women. On Monday, she said she's realized "in retrospect it was the wrong process" to remove Shooter without an ethics hearing.

Stringer, who didn't speak during Monday's floor debate, voted along with Republicans to recess the session. He didn't comment on the ethics complaint.

He has said he has no plans to resign and has never been convicted of a crime.

"Resigning over a 35 year old allegation for which I was not convicted and which was expunged would set an incredibly bad precedent," he told a 12News reporter in a text message last week.

Democrats blast recess move

Bolding chided his Republicans colleagues as he spoke on the House floor, repeating portions of Stringer's incendiary comments about racial minorities.

He referenced a comment where Stringer was recorded telling a group of university students that "African-Americans and other racial groups don't … blend in" like European immigrants.

MORE: Why did 67,023 Arizonans vote for Stringer after racist comments?

"When a little boy reads the paper and sees that a member of the House of Representatives says that you don't blend in," Bolding said, "what do you think that little 6- or 7-year-old boy feels?

"That's no OK. We hold ourselves to a higher standard."

House Majority Leader Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, said the reason Republicans stopped the vote to expel wasn't because they "aren't horrified" by the things they've heard.

"We have an ethics committee for a reason," he said. "Let's follow the process. Let's see what the ethics committee finds out."

Records list 'child pornography'

Court records posted online by the New Times state that at least one of Stringer's charges was related to child pornography. It's unclear, from available court records, what happened with that charge, or if there were multiple such charges.

It's also unclear what other specific charges he faced, with entries in the document stating "SEX02" and "SEX04" under different case numbers.

Many details of what happened are unknown given the matter was reportedly expunged, meaning records of the case were erased.

Microfilm of his case history was mistakenly provided to the New Times, according to a Maryland Judiciary spokeswoman quoted in that publication's report.

Conservative site defends Stringer

Stringer has discussed few details of the case, though he gave a detailed interview to the right-leaning Arizona Daily Independent.

The Independent reported that the case started in September 1983, when police officers showed up at Stringer's home over "false" accusations that he had pornography and had patronized prostitutes.

"Stringer didn't have pornography of any kind in his home and those charges were later dropped," the Independent's report states, without citing any independent evidence.

According to the case history, the court entered a judgment of guilt on some combination of charges. Stringer was sentenced to 5 years of probation and ordered to complete 208 hours of community service per year.

Court records also list another part of Stringer's apparent sentence: "Defendant is to seek admission to Dr. Berlin's Program at Hopkins." The New Times reported a man named Dr. Frederick Berlin is currently the director of the Sexual Behavior Consultation Unit at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Stringer reportedly told the Daily Independent that he accepted a plea of "probation before judgment" on two misdemeanor counts to avoid the possibility of a conviction.

"Weighing the litigation risk against a sure thing, he accepted the deal, completed his community service probation, and the matter was later expunged," the publication's article states, apparently quoting the lawmaker.

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