TPMMuckraker

GOP Rep Stalling on Releasing Record of 9-1-1 Call

Sweeney has said that recent reports of police documents showing he abused his wife were forgeries, and that he’d consent to releasing the originals so they could see they’d been duped. But for over a day and a half, he’s declined to sign the official order to allow those docs to be made public.

As TPM readers no doubt know, The New York Daily News and Albany Times-Union both published accounts earlier this week of a police blotter report that showed that an officer had been called to the Sweeneys home in December of last year on a domestic abuse call. Sweeney’s wife allegedly told a 9-1-1 dispatcher that he was “knocking her around the house,” and when an officer arrived, he was told that Sweeney had “grabbed [his wife] by the neck and pushed [her] around the house,” but that everything was fine now.

Sweeney responded to the report by claiming that the blotter report was forged. But oddly, the Sweeneys did confirm that there had been a 9-1-1 call — but that nothing like what’s alleged in the blotter report happened.

There’s a very clear way to get to the truth, of course: the police could release the official report. To do that, all they need is a signed and notarized letter from the Sweeneys. Now, Sweeney has said that he would authorize the police to release the report. But somehow, despite the fact that numerous news organizations have offered to facilitate the process, Sweeney just hasn’t gotten around to sending the police that letter.

And more than 24 hours after his promise to release the report, we’re all still waiting.

John Sweeney

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