September 2022 – Republican Sexual Predators

272: Merril Robert Barter

September 30, 2022Cajsa LilliehookLeave a comment

Merril Robert Barter was the Lincoln County GOP Commissioner for twenty-eight years and the Town Clerk of Boothbay Harbor, Maine, for forty-sex years. At age sixty-nine he went to the state Republican convention in Augusta and was arrested for having sex with a minor. At first he pled innocent but then changed his plea to guilty on two counts of unlawful sexual contact and sexual assault on a teenage boy was sentenced to 364 day suspended sentence and a year’s probation to serve consecutively.

271: Jack W. Gardner

September 30, 2022Cajsa LilliehookLeave a comment

Jack W. Gardner was convicted of child molesting over thirty years before the Republicans ran him for office. He was the Millersville Council Vice-President and a GOP committeeman for several terms. Republicans are fond of arguing that pedophilia cannot be treated, but I guess it’s okay if you’re a Republican.

In 1970, he pleaded guilty. He was charged with assault with intent to ravish, corrupting a minor, and indecent assault of a minor. She was thirteen, he was twenty-four at the time. He pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced from three to 23 months for assault with intent to ravish and a year’s probation for all the rest. He was paroled after just three month.

270: Tim Murphy

September 30, 2022Cajsa LilliehookLeave a comment

Tim Murphy was a Pennsylvania state senator before he ran for Congress and became a U.S. House member. He represented Pennsylvania’s 18th from 2003 until 2017 when he resigned as a result of several scandals. He was known for his absolute opposition to abortion, so when he urged the woman he was having an affair with to get an abortion, that was a major scandal. However, hypocrisy is not a road to listing here.

He was an abusive boss and fostered an atmosphere of abuse, hiring as Chief of Staff another abusive person. His office had 100% turnover because of abuse.

269: John Butler

September 29, 2022Cajsa LilliehookLeave a comment

John Butler was the Cass County, Illinois, Republican Party chairman . He and his wife were convicted of sexually abusing his niece. He was sentenced to three years while his wife received probation which she appealed and lost.

268: Larry Weinstein

September 29, 2022Cajsa LilliehookLeave a comment

Larry Weinstein was a Northampton Township Supervisor and the campaign manager for GOP Rep. Scott Petri. He and his girlfriend were charged with drugging a woman so they could film her naked, taking pictures of their body parts and of Weinstein with the woman. The police say there was also a second victim whose photos were on his iPad They pleaded guilty. He blamed a head injury reducing his impulse control, though the judge pointed out there was nothing impulsive about this crime. He also pleaded guilty to invasion of privacy for the photos of the second woman.

267: Paul Pressler

September 29, 2022Cajsa LilliehookLeave a comment

He has been accused by several men of raping them when they were minors. In 2017, a man came forward suing Judge Pressler, claiming he was raped by Pressler when he was just fourteen and the sexual assaults continued for decades. As often happens, once one person comes forward, others find the courage to come forward as well. According to court records, he settled with another accuser in 2004. He was successful in getting the suit dismissed because of the statute of limitations, but his accuser appealed and won in the Texas Supreme Court in April, 2022.

266: Mark Aderholt

September 28, 2022Cajsa LilliehookLeave a comment

Mark Aderholt was a Southern Baptist leader who was charged with the sexual assault of a teenager more than a decade after she reported it to church authorities. They investigated and wrote her a letter confirming their investigation suggested the abuse occurred. They did not report it to authorities. Aderhold pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and placed on deferred adjudication, which is like probation, but will allow him to have his conviction erased.

265: Frank Page

September 28, 2022Cajsa LilliehookLeave a comment

Frank Page was president of the Southern Baptist Convention and president of the SBC Executive Committee until 2018 when he resigned due to what he called a “morally inappropriate relationship.” That is not why he’s on this list because it may have been with a consenting adult. He is on this list because of the decades long Southern Baptist Convention coverup of pastoral sexual abuse of children and church members. Page suggested survivor activists were just setting up the church for lawsuits.

264: Christian Hine

September 28, 2022Cajsa LilliehookLeave a comment

Christian Hine was President of the Charlotte, South Carolina, Tea Party and active in Republican campaigns. He had a long history of activism on behalf of conservative issues such as opposing the Affordable Care Act to opposing local tax measures. He also looked at child exploitation materials, sharing hundreds of images over ten years.

He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years in prison with eight years suspended. In a novel and disgusting attempt to avoid any prison time, he claimed he viewed child sexual exploitation media because he was depressed and autistic. In gross malfeasance, the Charlotte Observer wrote an offensively credulous article accepting that.

263: Joseph Hayon

September 28, 2022Cajsa LilliehookLeave a comment

Joseph Hayon was an anti-gay conservative activist and founder of the Brooklyn Tea Party. He ran for the New York Assembly in 2010 emphasizing family values, attacking his opponent for supporting an anti-bullying bill because it included LGBTIQ students. He ran again in 2012 in a different district, and lost again. In 2013, he ran for City Council and lost definitively. His campaign again focused on morality and family values, emphasizing a proposal to ban the sale of obscene literature and have librarians face criminal penalties if children saw porn on library computers.

He was arrested and confessed to viewing child exploitation imagery of girls from two to twelve. He was convicted of 94 counts of possession of sexual performance by a child. He was sentenced to 1.4 to 4 years per count to run concurrently.