Next Time on Illinios: Over By Dere, The New Hooker and the Pawnbroker Storyline Debuts!The new Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor said he doesn’t think a 2005 domestic battery arrest where he held a knife to a prostitute should hurt him in the fall general election. Really?
Scott Lee Cohen, a pawnbroker who was the surprise winner in the little-publicized contest among half a dozen candidates, had previously disclosed the arrest. He described it Wednesday as an argument with his drunken girlfriend and said he didn’t lay a hand on her, though she called the police and had him taken into custody. Well, that's his side of the story.
The official police and court records show that the woman alleged Cohen put a knife to her throat and pushed her head against the wall.
Here's what went down. In 2005, the arrest report detailed the complaint from the 24-year-old woman, Chicago police noted they observed “mild abrasions from knife wound” on her neck. They also noted “minor scars on her hand from her trying to defend herself against the arrestee swinging the knife at her.” The report notes the woman was seen by ambulance personnel but not taken to a hospita. The case was [conveniently] dropped a month later when the woman did not show up for a court date.
Public records also reveal that the alleged victim, Scott’s 24-year-old girlfriend at the time, was a prostitute. Six months before the October 2005 incident, she had been arrested after a police investigation of a Glenview massage parlor. She later pleaded guilty to a charge of prostitution.
Through a spokesman Cohen said he did not know at the time that the woman was a prostitute and that she had told him she worked as a “massage therapist.” Oh. Okay, then you're off the hook then.
Cohen's spokesman said the woman’s accusations about the assault were false, and pointed to the fact that the case was dropped as evidence that complaint was baseless.
“These are accusations of what she says happened, but that is not what happened,” said campaign spokesman Phil Molfese. Of course. How silly. Because he's totally trustworthy.
Molfese said that he doubted that the marks on the woman’s neck that were noted by the arresting officers could have been made by a knife, and Cohen stands by his claim that he did not touch the woman.
“Those abrasions, we don’t know where they came from,” Molfese said.
“I think this is totally ridiculous,” he said. “They were living together. They had a fight.”
In the earlier interview with Cohen, he had characterized his relationship with the woman as “tumultuous,” and said that he was going through a difficult time as his marriage was breaking up and he “fell in with the wrong crowd.” See, they were separated, and he had a crazy 24 year old prostitute girlfriend.
“He admits he was not in an ideal place at that time,” Molfese said. “People sometimes get off track. He was going through a divorce.”
Every time we think we have found the bottom of the political pit in Illinois, we somehow find another sub-basement.
Why don't we just elect folks who are already in prison and save ourselves the time?