Friday, February 17, 2012

Phoenix New Times Outs Paul Babeu

Posted By on Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 7:36 PM

babeu_a2a.jpg

Well, this should be interesting. The Phoenix New Times has dropped a bombshell on at least one congressional race, outing Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, with his former lover, who happens to not be the country legally, providing images of Babeu's Adam2Adam profile and incriminating text messages. To make the story more Tucson-relevant, the story also involved Rep. Matt Heinz:

Openly gay Tucson state Representative Matt Heinz was one of two Democratic lawmakers who broke ranks with the party in March 2011 and voted to give Babeu $5 million to combat border violence. Other lawmakers opposed the measure, in part, because Babeu's county is at least 70 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. The measure finally was pared down to $1.7 million and passed by the Legislature.

About a week after Heinz's nod to Babeu, the sheriff spent the night at Heinz's home, text messages that Jose shared with New Times show.

"I'm at Mat Heinz and his boyfriend for dinner & ice cream . . . we are going out to bar and . . . to their house. [Am] staying over," Babeu texted to Jose at 1:04 a.m. last April 2.

Heinz didn't immediately return a phone call seeking confirmation of the sleepover.

Clearly, Sheriff Babeu should be free to live his life in whatever manner he likes sexually, but it'll be interesting to see how this is received among his generally very conservative fanbase, especially consider it appears he knew of his lover's immigration status when they were dating.

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