GOP candidate in Phoenix House race calls story on racy texts 'tabloid trash'

PHOENIX — A Christian minister seeking the congressional seat of a disgraced Arizona congressman is labeling reports that he traded suggestive texts with a female staffer, who included a topless photo of herself in one of the exchanges, as “tabloid trash.”

But former state Sen. Steve Montenegro didn’t deny that he received the messages.

Meanwhile, one of the other Republican front-runners in the race to replace former Rep. Trent Franks, former state Sen. Debbie Lesko, is under fire for transferring $50,000 from her old state campaign fund to an independent group backing her congressional election bid.

The revelations are likely to roil the 12-way GOP race in the days leading up to Tuesday’s special primary election to fill the vacant U.S. House seat in the state’s 8th Congressional District, a Republican stronghold in Phoenix’s western suburbs.

Montenegro called the Arizona Republic and KPNX-TV 12 reports “tabloid trash that conservatives around this country have to deal with on a regular basis.”

“I am blessed with an amazing wife and marriage,” he said in a statement. “The media wants to drag us down with just a week to go, but we are not going to dignify this false tabloid trash with any further response.”

Montenegro was Franks’ district director and touts himself as a Christian minister and family man .

The junior-level staffer who sent the messages repeatedly declined to speak with the newspaper.


source: tucson