Senator Pleads Guilty to Lewd Conduct in Men’s Room

By Pamela Mortimer

A government watchdog group filed an ethics complaint against Idaho Senator Larry Craig on Tuesday, after Craig admitted to pleading guilty to charges arising from accusations of lewd conduct in the Minneapolis men's room.

The complaint, filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, requests that the Senate ethics committee launch an investigation into Craig’s possible violation of Senate rules by engaging in disorderly conduct.

The charges filed against Craig are the result of an incident that took place in a men’s room at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. According to Sgt. Dave Karsnia, the police officer who arrested Craig on June 11, Craig peered through a crack in a restroom stall door for two minutes and made gestures suggesting that he wanted to engage in "lewd conduct".

"Craig would look down at his hands, 'fidget' with his fingers, and then look through the crack into my stall again," Karsnia wrote in documents accompanying the arrest report. Karsnia also noted other signs often used by men wanting to engage in sexual activity, such as placing a suitcase in front of a stall door to prevent others from seeing what was happening inside.

Craig said Karsnia, who was undercover to investigate complaints of sexual activity, misinterpreted his actions.

The police report also states that after Craig was taken for questioning, he held out a Senate business card to the officer and asked, "What do you think of that?"

According to a court docket from Hennepin County, MN, Craig pleaded guilty to a disorderly conduct charge on August 8. The court dismissed a charge of gross misdemeanor interference to privacy.

The court docket also stated that Craig paid $575 in fines and fees and was put on unsupervised probation for a period of one year. A 10-day sentence in the county workhouse was stayed.

Craig, a conservative three-term senator, is up for re-election next year. To date, the Senator hasn't made any public announcement about running for a fourth term in 2008. There has been a considerable amount of discussion on whether the complaint will affect Craig’s political career.

A political science professor in Idaho stated that he believes Craig's political future is in jeopardy. Hannah August, a spokesman for the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, said Craig's guilty plea "has given Americans another reason not to vote Republican" next year.

Craig, who voted against gay marriage, issued a statement Monday declaring that he was not involved in any inappropriate conduct.

"At the time of this incident, I complained to the police that they were misconstruing my actions," he said. "I should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter. In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expeditiously."

Craig, 62, has faced numerous rumors regarding his sexuality since the 80s, but any allegations that he has participated in gay sex have never been substantiated. Craig, who is married, has denied the rumors and calls them "ridiculous".

Jasper LiCalzi, a political science professor at Albertson College of Idaho in Caldwell, Idaho, says that the arrest changes the entire dynamic surrounding Craig’s career. LiCalzi referred to the House page scandal that eventually drove Florida Senator Mark Foley out of office.

"There's a chance that he'll resign over this," LiCalzi said. "With the pressure on the Republican Party, he could be pressured to resign. If they think this is going to be something that's the same as Mark Foley -- the sort of 'drip, drip, drip, there's more information that's going to come out' -- they may try to push him out."