bentley 2014

Gov. Robert Bentley during a visit to Huntsville in April 2014, which was about the time he began admitting to his family that he was having an affair with Rebekah Mason. (AL.com file photo)

The children of Gov. Robert Bentley believed their father may have been suffering from dementia at the time they were learning of his affair with Rebekah Mason.

Their concern was included in the impeachment report for the House Judiciary Committee released Friday.

The family also sought to have their father undergo a medical evaluation by specialists outside of Alabama but such an evaluation never occurred, the report said.

Another point in the report said that Michael Echols, a Tuscaloosa accountant who was friends with the Bentleys and assisted Bentley's wife in filing for divorce, also suspected the governor had dementia.

"It is our understanding that the remainder of the family found out about their father's relationship with Mason piecemeal," said the report, which was compiled by Jack Sharman, special counsel to the committee. "Reportedly, the family's instinct was to surround Ms. Bentley with protection, but several witnesses also told us that there was a belief among the Bentley children that their father may have been suffering dementia or other health problems.

"Witnesses also told us that there was an effort by the Bentley children to have their father evaluated by medical specialists outside of Alabama. Such a medical intervention never came to fruition."

Mason believed that Echols suspected the affair and wanted to go public with it, according to the report.

"One reason Mason gave for her suspicion, (state investigator Scott) Lee recalls, was that Echols had tried to 'trick' Governor Bentley into boarding a plane for the purpose of being tested for dementia," the report said.

The family began to learn about the affair in 2014 - two years before it became public in March 2016.

The report said that Bentley stopped denying that the affair existed in the spring of 2014 - shortly after his now ex-wife recorded the widely-heard salacious conversation between Bentley and Mason while the Bentleys were at the beach.

After making the recording with her cell phone, Ms. Bentley's chief of staff Heather Hannah burned the recording onto a disc. Ms. Bentley played the disc for their son, Paul, and his wife, Melissa.

In the spring of 2014, Paul drove to Montgomery to confront his father with the recording and forced him to listen to it. At that point, the governor first began to show contrition for the relationship, the report said.

"It was also reported to us that Paul Bentley later had a separate conversation with Mason, during which she also admitted to an affair with Governor Bentley," the report said.