That collective gasp you hear across Arizona?

That’s the sound of this state reacting to what Rep. David Stringer has been hiding.

The House Ethics Committee on Friday released the Baltimore police report on the 1983 case that led to Stringer’s guilty plea on several sex charges.

Turns out he was accused of paying for sex with two young boys, one of them disabled.

One of the boys, who was not more than 14 years old, told police Stringer approached them in a park and asked if they wanted to come to his house and "have some sex." The boy said he had gone to Stringer’s apartment at least 10 times to have sex and that the two showered together. Stringer was 35.

Stringer’s past began catching up to him in January when the Phoenix New Times revealed that he was given probation for sex-related charges in 1983 and ordered to seek entrance into a program for sex offenders. Among the original charges: possession of child pornography. The documents obtained by the New Times didn't specify the disposition of the child pornography charge.

The case was expunged in 1990 and the court file erased.

'Fake news?' Um, no ...

Stringer has spent months singing his poor-me song, explaining how he did nothing wrong and castigating the media for spreading “fake news.”

Conservative “news” sites were quick to jump to his defense, blindly accepting his story as gospel.

Cue the Arizona Daily Independent: “David Stringer’s False Arrest Drives Empathy for Those Trapped in Unjust System."

Because everything is about politics, right?

Stringer has insisted all along that he is innocent. Yet he refused to cooperate with an ethics investigation or even to provide a document that he claimed would show he would clear his name.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Stringer pronounced House Ethics Committee Chairman T.J. Shope biased and even compared his predicament with Donald Trump and Democrats – never mind that Shope is a fellow Republican, as is Rep. Kelly Townsend, who filed the ethics complaint about the sex case.

"We watch Democrats like Jerold Nadler or Adam Schiff go on TV and tell everyone how President Trump is definitely guilty but then promise to conduct fair investigations and we shake our heads, or laugh, or cry at what has become of our system," Stringer wrote. "Seeing that happen here in Arizona is no laughing matter."

Neither is seeing a suspected pervert in the Arizona Legislature.

This is not about politics but safety

Stringer resigned on Wednesday, an hour before the deadline for complying with a House subpoena. I'm guessing he thought his departure would prompt the Ethics Committee to end its investigation and bury the report.

In other words, that he could continue crying victim and spreading the fiction that he was unfairly attacked because he's a conservative.

Instead, Stringer's colleagues did the unexpected. They released the police report.

"The shock and horror we felt when we learned the details in this report are indescribable ...," House Speaker Rusty Bowers and Minority Leader Charlene Fernandez wrote. "This is not about politics, it's about the safety and security of children. It will not be easy, but for the sake of our state, for children, and for this institution that we love, we must resolve to move forward from this. The public must know that we hold each other to the highest standards of character ..."

Or at least a standard that doesn't allow a suspected child rapist to make laws for the rest of us to follow.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com.