Republican Scott DesJarlais — challenging Rep. Lincoln Davis (D) in Tennessee’s 4th district — was accused by his ex-wife in a divorce proceeding a decade ago of harassment, intimidation and physical abuse, Roll Call reported Thursday.
Back in November 2000, DesJarlais’ wife sought to obtain sole possession of the couple’s home and said she was forced to leave after her husband became violent. DesJarlais was accused of “dry firing a gun outside the Plaintiff’s locked bedroom door, admission of suicidal ideation, holding a gun in his mouth for three hours, an incident of physical intimidation at the hospital; and previous threatening behavior … i.e. shoving, tripping, pushing down, etc.”
The campaign has hit back at the accusations.
“These one-sided accusations from a decade-old divorce are all false and the court ruled there was no validity to any of them,” DesJarlais campaign manager Brent Leatherwood said in a statement to the newspaper on Wednesday.
In another filing, his ex-wife asked that her husband’s visitation rights with their child be limited because DesJarlais “allegedly showed up at her apartment complex on Valentine’s Day and began harassing her to the point that she called the police.”
DesJarlais’ ex-wife Susan was later found to be in contempt of court for verbally abusing and cursing Scott DesJarlais in the presence of their child, said Roll Call.
According to his campaign website, DesJarlais “has been practicing medicine in Tennessee for almost two decades, seeing patients at the Grand View Medical Center in Jasper.” He has since remarried, and his bio says that “Scott and his wife Amy, have three children: Tyler, Ryan and their little sister Maggie.”
In an interview with RedState earlier this year, DesJarlais touted his family values.
We believe in God, and family and that success is created by working hard every day. We don’t want the government interfering in our lives or telling us what to do. And we are tired of being the victims of a liberal system that is slowly stripping us of our means to live and survive.
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