Judge: Bad-Mouthing of Wooten By Palin’s Family Was “Form of Child Abuse”Newsweek reports that in 2005, a judge warned Sarah Palin and her family to stop disparaging Mike Wooten, the state trooper who at the time was undergoing a bitter divorce from Palin’s sister and is at the heart of the ongoing Trooper-Gate investigation.
According to court records of the divorce proceedings obtained by the magazine, Judge John Suddock called the attacks on Wooten by the family “a form of child abuse.” And an official with the troopers’ union told the judge that he had received up to a dozen family complaints against Wooten. The official said he believed the complaints were “not job-related” and that Wooten was being “harassed” by his estranged wife’s family.
And in his January 2006 order granting a final divorce decree to Wooten and Palin’s sister, now known as Molly Hackett, Judge Suddock threatened to curb Hackett’s child custody rights if her family continued to criticize Wooten. It appears that the judge did not ultimately limit those rights.
The Palins’ alleged animosity toward Wooten is central to Trooper-Gate. The former state public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, alleged in July that he was fired by Sarah Palin, who was elected governor in November 2006, because he refused to fire Wooten from his job as a trooper. The state legislature has appointed an independent investigator to look into the matter.
Gov. Palin had at first pledged full cooperation with the probe, but since she was announced as John McCain’s running-mate, that cooperation has ground to a halt.