279: Michael Capps
Child Abuse, Rape Culture
Michael Cappa, a former Kansas state legislator, made the list twice. Child abuse and concocting false allegations of sexual harassment.
Author: Cajsa Lilliehook
278: Republican State Legislatures
Enabling, Rape Culture
Republicans control several state legislatures and are the major impediment to reforming the various state statutes of limitations (SOL) preventing victims of child sexual abuse victims from seeking justice. Child USA tracks the progress of SOL reform in the states. Children who are abused are often not ready to report until they have processed what happened to them. Some states set an age limit for reporting and filing a civil case that favors abusers. Republican states have been slow to reform or eliminate their statute of limitations. In some states the Democratic-controlled body has passed reform several times to see it die in the Republican-controlled other body.
277: Gary Schaffrick
Child Endangerment
Gary Schaffrick was the Connecticut Republican State Central Committee Treasurer. He also was a paid employee of the party. He often bragged about how much he enjoyed bathtime with a five-year-old victim, a young boy who also slept with him on sleepovers. He was babysitting the child for a relative. He was charged with risk of injury to a child, a broad charge that encompasses offenses from supplying a child with cigarettes, alcohol, adult materials, or inappropriate sexual contact. He resigned after the press sued for release of details of his arrest warrant. He pleaded guilty and was given a ten-year suspended sentence and five years probation.
276: Frederick Wall
Child Sexual Abuse Material
Frederick Wall ran unsuccessfully in the Republican primary for South Carolina House District 27. That same year he was arrested for possession of child exploitation material. He denied, threatening a reporter who questioned him. However, a man of his name, age, and address was arrested. The several charges are still pending. New charges seem to have been added in February, 2022.
275: Travis Brauer
Secret Photos or Recordings
Travis Brauer worked for Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin. While on the job, he attended a legislative meeting. Seated on the floor because the room was packed, he was seen taking upskirt photos of a woman. She reported it to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol which was desultory in its response. She also wrote a letter to Governor Fallin. By the time the man was questioned, he had deleted the pictures though his search history showed he had recently researched how to permanently delete photos. He was charged with submitting false testimony and destroying evidence. After two years of legal wrangling, he pled guilty and was given 80 hours of community service.
274: Rupert Tarsey
Assault, Attempted Murder
Rupert Tarsey was elected Secretary of the Broward County Executive Committee. He had worked hard on Trump’s election, registering Republican voters in a liberal county. But he was not who he seemed to be.
He was born Rupert Ditsworth. His family was wealthy and he attended an exclusive prep school near his home in Beverly Hills. One day he invited another student, Elizabeth Barcay, to eat lunch in his Jaguar. He confessed he was feeling suicidal and when she suggested seeking counseling he beat her with a hammer until it broke and then he tried to strangle her. There were forty wounds from the beating. Incredibly, she bit him, broke free, ran away, before collapsing in someone’s yard. She survived. He was charged with attempted murder and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon
273: Bill Schuette
Sexual Harassment
Bill Schuette was the Congressional representative for District 10 for three terms before he ran for US Senate and lost. He served two years in the Michigan Senate before becoming the Attorney General of Michigan from 2011 to 2018 and ran an unsuccessful campaign for governor against Gretchen Whitmer in 2018. He’s a fairly typical conservative Republican, opposing gay marriage, abortion, legalization of marijuana, and the Affordable Care Act.
He also denigrates professional women while they are working as shown in this video where he sexually harasses a camera operator insinuating she would want to do more than just film him. You can judge for yourself if women can expect to be treated as his professional equal. In his defense, Schuette said the video was heavily edited. The Detroit News obtained the entire clip and verified the accuracy of the clip, refuting his defense.
272: Merril Robert Barter
Child Molestation
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
Child Indecency, Child Molestation, Child Rape
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.
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270: Tim Murphy
Hostile Workplace
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.