Joe.My.God. LGBT News
The Oklahoman reports:
Police here are investigating why state Sen. Ralph Shortey was in a hotel room last Thursday with a teenage boy. Police are reviewing text messages purportedly exchanged between Shortey and the teenager as part of the investigation, The Oklahoman has learned. Police became involved because of concerns raised by a relative of the boy.
Cleveland County District Attorney Greg Mashburn confirmed Tuesday he has received an initial briefing about the incident from a Moore police investigator. He said he is awaiting the investigator’s final report before deciding whether any criminal charges are warranted. Shortey, 35, was questioned Monday by Moore police, the prosecutor said.
Shortey, R-Oklahoma City, was first elected in 2010. He has been married to his high school sweetheart since 2002. He studied in college to do mission work in Uganda. He instead went into the oil and gas industry and then into politics.
More from Oklahoma City’s ABC affiliate:
The Oklahoma Democratic Party chair has called for Sen. Ralph Shortey to suspend himself amid a police investigation. KOCO 5 News learned that Shortey is under investigation by Moore Police Department following an incident at a motel.
An employee of the Super 8 Motel near Interstate 35 confirms that a man by the name “Ralph Allen Shortey” checked into the motel at about 12:20 a.m. March 9. The man asked for two beds. The employee said that police arrived at the hotel motel about 30 minutes later in response to a welfare check. He did not say who requested the check.
Officers found a juvenile male and an adult male in the same room, police officials said. The circumstances of the incident are under investigation. No one was arrested or has been listed as a suspect, officials said.
Raw Story notes that Shortey was the Oklahoma state campaign chair for Trump during the primaries and was himself endorsed by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, probably due to Shortey’s bill which would deny citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants. Shortey earned national ridicule in 2012 when he introduced a bill that would ban human fetuses in food products. Which is a problem, apparently.