>>177794, >>177795, >>177796, >>177797, >>177798, >>177799, >>177800, >>177801, >>177802, >>177803, >>177804, >>177805, >>177806, >>177807, >>177808, >>177809
Elizabeth Barcohana @E_Barcohana - I had to shower after I read this.
The standout to me was the mistress allegedly abused the government catastrophic illness paid leave program for alcoholism when the real story may have been she was pregnant with Newsom’s child.
What happened to that child?
Quote:
MAZE @mazemoore
While Mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom had an affair with his best friend's wife. There was more to that scandal than most people know. It's really a testament to how corrupt California politics is that the scandal did not end Newsom's career.
Alex Tourk was Newsom's longtime friend and campaign manager. Tourk became Newsom's Deputy Chief of Staff after Newsom took office as Mayor in 2004. Shortly after Newsom took office, Tourk's wife (known as Ruby Rippey-Tourk back then) was given a job as "Appointments Secretary" in the Mayor's office. It is unclear if she got that job because of her husband or because of Newsom. She kept the job until the summer/fall of 2006. Newsom's affair with her was alleged to have started in 2005 but it may have started earlier.
Mayor Newsom's mistress was not only his friend's wife, she was also his subordinate. The affair was apparently an open secret to many in the Mayor's office. Unfortunately for the husband he somehow didn't know until she admitted it to him later on. Love is blind.
Here's the part of the scandal that most politicians would not have been able to survive. After the affair became public, it became clear that Newsom's mistress/secretary had received benefits that she did not qualify for while she worked for Newsom. Most of the unearned benefits revolved around her getting paid for time not spent working.
During her tenure she missed work over 20% of the time and yet still kept her job and still got paid. There was a nine month stretch during which she never worked even one full week during the entire nine months. She exceeded her PTO amount but kept taking PTO and kept getting paid for it.
Here's the big one. Gavin's former mistress/secretary also took almost three months off under the city's Catastrophic Illness Program. She was approved and paid for the time off even though her "illness" absolutely did not qualify for the program. Her illness? Alcoholism. No city employee in San Francisco had ever been approved for paid leave through the Catastrophic Illness Program for drug/alcohol related issues. The program was for life threatening illnesses such as advanced stage cancer. Ruby Rippey-Tourk claimed she was an alcoholic, took ten weeks off, and got paid for it by the city. Newsom's mistress was the only person to get that paid time off granted just for claiming to be an alcoholic. It was rumored at the time of her leave that she was pregnant with Newsom's child.
Because it was San Francisco and because Newsom was a popular up and coming Democrat politician who had the support of Bill Clinton, there was never a serious investigation into any of it.
After the affair became public, Alex Tourk quit his job. Newsom announced that he would be paying Tourk's monthly salary until Tourk found a new job. Newsom ended up using campaign funds to pay off Tourk, not personal money.
Newsom was dating his current wife (Jennifer Siebel) when the scandal became public. Siebel defended Newsom, bashed Ruby Rippey-Tourk as the "culprit" and then reached out to Harvey Weinstein (whom she had previously slept with) for advice on how Gavin should handle the media. Today Siebel claims she is a fighter for women.
17