Missouri Lt. Gov Peter Kinder (R) has spoken out about the allegations that he long frequented a strip club and sort-of stalked a stripper who worked there, admitting that he used to go to the strip club in question but maintaining that it was years ago. “I came to realize that this is not consistent with my upbringing. I’m a Christian,” he said.
Kinder also denied many of the allegations against him. “A single man is vulnerable to any fantastic charge,” he told the St. Louis Beacon.
In an interview Wednesday, Kinder told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he used to frequent the Diamond Cabaret in Sauget, Illinois, which he first found after a baseball game. He says he went back about ten times, but it was the 90s, and who didn’t do crazy stuff in the 90s? “I came to realize that this is not consistent with my upbringing. I’m a Christian,” he said. “I was raised in a good family, and I thought, you know, continuing to go there is leading me down the wrong path.”
Kinder, a Tea Party aligned conservative, is widely expected to run for governor in 2012.
Kinder’s comments were in response to allegations from former Penthouse model Tammy Chapman, who claims Kinder was a frequent customer when she was an “entertainer” at said club in Illinois.
She told the River-Front Times earlier this month that sixteen years ago Kinder had repeatedly tried to sleep with her while she was working there, and would shower her with gifts when he made his multiple weekly trips to the club. But, Chapman claims, she cut off contact after a while. “He became very aggressive with me,” she says. “I couldn’t tolerate what he was making me do.”
Kinder denies that he ever got lap dances from Chapman, though he says he may have given her tips when she was on stage with other strippers. “There are all kinds of fantastic allegations,” he told the Beacon.
Chapman claims that she saw Kinder again last winter when he came into Verlin’s Bar & Grill, a St. Louis bar that boasts the slogan “every night’s a pantless party,” where she worked at the time. According to Chapman, Kinder recognized her and suggested she move into his condo. She then took a picture of her and Kinder, which she gave to the Times.
When Kinder first denied the allegations, he claimed it was part of a conspiracy by Missouri’s Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon. “Like most people I am not proud of every place I have been but this woman’s bizarre story is not true,” Kinder said in a statement last week. “The Democrats have tried to use these tactics against me in the past and they have failed. Jay Nixon may want to make up false stories about the past, but I, like most Missourians, remain focused on the issues that are important to Missourians like jobs and education.”
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