Exposing the Corruption of the "Family Values" Party
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
James “Dub” Maines was was Texas Representative Joe Barton’s deputy district director. That position is one that involves working with the public to help them with different government agencies. It’s a constituent service position. If you’re curious, here is a job description. He was arrested in 2013 when AOL noticed he was emailing child sexual exploitation material from his personal AOL account to his house.gov work e-mail. They let the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children know and the DOJ began investigating. They reported that he had been receiving child pornography since 2004.
He pleaded no contest to one count of promoting sexual performance of a child and 28 counts of possession of child pornography. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the first and upon release 10 years of probation for the 28 counts of possession of child pornography.
Rory A. Koch was a Republican staffer in the Minnesota House of Representatives. In 2010, he was running for Ramsey County Board when he was arrested and charged with twelve counts of possessing child pornography. He received 25% of the vote. The child-porn investigation was not public knowledge.
The Minnesota Crimes Against Children Task Force were tipped off that someone with the screen name Chadwhite73 was likely disseminating child exploitation materials. AOL identified the account as belonging to Rory Koch and his home was searched. He acknowledged receiving it but claimed he could not delete it. There were 68 images on his computer.
Koch was convicted and sentenced to five years.