Report: David Stringer on child sex trafficking, 'I don't like to demonize it'
Former Arizona Rep. David Stringer made disturbing comments about child sex trafficking and his interactions with children within the past few years, two Prescott women told ethics investigators.
Those statements are included in new records the state House of Representatives released Wednesday from its ethics investigation into complaints against Stringer, who resigned last week over accusations that he raped children in the 1980s.
Among the new records are notes about a conversation Stringer had with an activist during a 2018 Republican Women of Prescott meeting, where he disputed that child sex trafficking is a problem.
According to investigators' notes of the exchange, Stringer and Merissa Hamilton, an activist who works to protect child victims of trafficking, were seated next to each other watching a speech from a Border Patrol agent at the event.
Their discussion can be overheard in a video, which Hamilton recorded as she live-streamed the event on Facebook.
In the video, Stringer and Hamilton discuss what issue he should ask the speaker about, and she suggests Stringer ask about child trafficking.
He responds by saying that he doesn't think sex trafficking is a concern and said, "I don't like to demonize it."
Stringer also said while he doesn't think there is much child sex trafficking there are "a lot of 15-year-old prostitutes." He laughed after making that comment. The 1980s charges included accusations that Stringer paid for sex with one child who was 15 for part of the time.
After the speech, Stringer allegedly defended child sex abuse during an argument they had in the parking lot.
Hamilton told investigators that Stringer said he didn't think there was any "damage" from child sex trafficking, saying, "If an uncle takes his niece or nephew to a playground, and they go on the merry-go-round and have some ice cream, and then do their thing, that’s just part of the experience."
She said Stringer told her they could "agree to disagree" when she insisted sex trafficking caused life-long damage to children. She was "shaken" by the experience.
New report with two dozen interviews
Stringer's alleged comments about sex trafficking were included in a new, 181- report that the House Ethics Committee released on Wednesday afternoon. The report details interviews that private investigators, hired by the House's attorneys, conducted with 24 witnesses.
The interviews shed new light on Stringer's views on child sex abuse and racism a week after he resigned from office following ethics complaints regarding his past sex-crime charges and racist comments.
Child advocate and David Stringer debate on child sex trafficking. Courtesy of Arizona House of Representatives
His attorney, Carmen Chenal, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday afternoon.
Stringer, a Republican from Prescott, abruptly resigned on March 27. Two days later, the Ethics Committee released a police report that revealed that he was arrested in 1983 on suspicion of paying two children to have sex with him.
The Baltimore police report states Stringer was accused of paying two boys under the age of 15 for sex. One boy had a developmental disability, according to the report.
Stringer has professed his innocence. He claims he was never convicted of a crime, saying the allegations "had no basis in fact."
"What I will say is that the charges I faced in 1983 are as false today as they were 35 years ago," Stringer wrote in a Facebook post over the weekend.
While Stringer claims he never was convicted, court records show he accepted a plea deal on some combination of charges and was sentenced to five years of supervised probation.
But few details of the case are known because it was later expunged.
Records released by the House on Wednesday shed new light on how the Ethics Committee obtained the police report from Stringer's 1983 arrest.
A Maryland-based private investigator wrote in a letter that he received it from the Baltimore Police Department. The police department previously refused to release the same report to The Arizona Republic, saying the case had been expunged.
Prescott Mayor Greg Mengarelli reads a statement calling on state Rep. David Stringer to resign from the Arizona Legislature over his racist comments. Dustin Gardiner, The Republic | azcentral.com
'I like being a daddy figure'
Interview notes released by the Ethics Committee on Wednesday also include comments Stringer allegedly made to school administrators.
Rosemary Agneessens, a leader with the Prescott Education Advocacy Council, told investigators about comments Stringer made in the past few years regarding an internship where he helped English Language Learning students in third and fourth grade.
She said she was shocked when Stringer said, “I like being a daddy figure for the little girls when they sit on my lap."
Agneessens said Stringer made the comments in late 2017 or early 2018, as he told educators about an internship he said was with the Arizona State University Preparatory Academy in Phoenix.
However, ASU spokesman Bret Hovell said there's "no record of him being at ASU Prep. We don’t have him as an intern, as a teacher, as a student teacher."
Records released by the House include a fingerprint-clearance card that shows Stringer passed a background check with the Arizona Department of Public Safety to teach in schools.
It's unclear where Stringer might have taught, if anywhere, based on those records.
Agneessens also told investigators about racist comments Stringer reportedly made to school administrators during a meeting in his office at the Capitol in 2017.
She said Stringer told the group that "'Mexicans' and poor students should not be educated past the eighth grade, as this was a waste of education funding." Stringer also reportedly said Mexicans and "special ed" students will never contribute to their communities or the economy.
Republic reporter Mitchell Atencio contributed to this report.
Reach the reporter at dustin.gardiner@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-2471. Follow him on Twitter: @dustingardiner.
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