AP / Steve Nesius, File Katherine Harris, left, and her husband, Anders Ebbeson

Former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris’ husband reportedly committed suicide Tuesday.

Police in Sarasota, Fla., were investigating the apparent suicide after they were called early Tuesday morning to the home Harris shared with her husband Anders Ebbeson, 68, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports. Harris played a high-profile role in the 2000 presidential election recount in Florida.

William Hild, pastor of the Sarasota First Baptist Church, confirmed to reporters that Ebbeson had committed suicide “Katherine’s husband took his own life,” Hild said, speaking on the family’s behalf. “They are asking for privacy, prayer, thoughts and love from the community.”

Ebbeson, a Swedish businessman, married Harris in 2006. “Anders has been suffering health conditions that he’d been attempting to deal with,” Hild said, “which had been increasingly part of his life.”

[Sarasota Herald-Tribune]