GOP Utah House Majority Leader Resigns In Wake Of Teen Hot-Tubbing Scandal

Utah House Majority Leader Kevin Garn (R) has resigned. The decision comes two days after his admission that he'd paid $150,000 to a woman in return for her silence that they'd partied nude in a hot tub when the woman was only 15 years old.

While GOP leaders scramble to find a replacement for Garn, new accusations surfaced Saturday from Cheryl Maher, the woman involved in the 1985 incident, who was an employee at a Layton record store owned by Garn at the time. Maher, who signed a non-disclosure agreement when she accepted the payment from Garn, said she was disappointed in news coverage that she felt made it appear as if she were a "gold digger." She said she wanted the truth to come out, and that truth is that she wasn't the only female employee with whom Garn had contact. "There were other girls," Maher said. "After me, it was Liz … Liz Moody now. She used to be Liz Smuin." While Maher did not provide details on the nature of that contact, she said she knew there was "some kind of relationship going on" between then-Smuin and Garn after the woman moved from Garn's Pegasus Records store in Bountiful to the Layton location, where Maher also worked.

Utah GOP Leader Hot-Tubbed With Naked 15 Year Old Girl, Paid For Her Silence

Utah GOP House Majority Leader Kevin Garn has admitted that in 1985 he skinny-dipped in a hot tub with a nude 15 year-old girl and has paid her $150,000 since 2002 in return for her silence. The devout Mormon and "family values" advocate was married at the time.

With his wife by his side, Garn yesterday told reporters: "I expect to suffer public humiliation and embarrassment. Some lessons are hard to learn. This is something I should've done back in 2002 but I was scared. I did not want to be publicly judged by one of my life's [worst mistakes]." Maher detailed the incident in an interview with the paper. She said that in 1985, age 15, she was employed by Garn, then 30, at his business, Pegasus Records and KSG Enterprises. Garn, she said, "struck up a relationship" with her, as the paper puts it. One night, he took her to a location in Salt Lake City -- it's unclear where -- where they both got in the hot-tub nude. Garn yesterday told reporters about the incident. "I can unequivocally tell you there was no physical contact, there was no touching, there was no intercourse, there was none of those things. It simply did not occur. I'm not trying to downplay what did occur but I want to make it very plain." Nonetheless, Maher, who now lives in New Hampshire, blames the incident for triggering the subsequent unraveling of her life. She has struggled with drugs and drinking, and has had mental health problems.

Garn has been a supporter of archconservative Utah Gov. Gary Herbert. In January he allowed a statewide LGBT rights bill to die in committee for the second year in a row, saying that "nothing had changed" that warranted the bill's passage.