It’s really hard trying to keep track of all of these creepers.
State Rep. Phil Hinkle admitted Tuesday that he paid a young man $80 to have a good time. But Hinkle insisted he isn’t gay and doesn’t know why he did it.
He said that he understood why he’s being stripped of his committee chairmanships and that he won’t seek re-election. But he said he will not resign, despite House Speaker Brian Bosma’s call Tuesday to do so.
And he said he did nothing illegal with — or to — the young man and that he himself was the victim of a crime. But he said he would not file a police report.
Hinkle offered his first public comments Tuesday since The Indianapolis Star revealed that the lawmaker used Craigslist to arrange to pay a young man to spend time with him Aug. 6 at a Downtown hotel.
But if Hinkle’s comments seemed at times short of full disclosure or even contradictory, that’s far from where the contradiction ends.
Hinkle’s version of what happened that night in Room 2610 at the JW Marriott hotel differs greatly from the version provided by the young man and his sister.
Kameryn Gibson, the 18-year-old who said he was looking for a “sugga daddy” in the Craigslist posting, told The Star that he tried to leave the room that night and called his sister Megan after Hinkle identified himself as a lawmaker. He also said Hinkle tried to keep him from leaving, exposed himself and then — after his sister arrived — offered them $100 cash, an iPad and a Blackberry to keep quiet.
Hinkle’s version: He never exposed himself and never offered anything to the Gibsons to keep quiet. Instead, he said, Kameryn Gibson stole those items when Hinkle was in the bathroom.
“These people,” Hinkle said, “are lying through their teeth.”
Kameryn and Megan Gibson stood by their story Tuesday.
Whatever happened in that hotel room, the events that brought them there are not in dispute — and continue to form the basis for renewed calls for the Indianapolis Republican to resign.
Bosma said Tuesday that he spoke to Hinkle last week and told him he should spend the 2012 legislative session focusing on his personal life — and not in the Statehouse.
“His continued service in the Indiana House is a distraction from that priority,” Bosma, R-Indianapolis, said in a statement, “and a detriment to the continuing work of the legislature.”
Bosma also announced Tuesday he was stripping Hinkle of his chairmanships of the Government and Regulatory Reform Committee and the Interim Study Committee on Driver Education.
Bosma has joined other Republican Party officials who have called for Hinkle to step down, but Hinkle fired back Tuesday, saying that it’s not up to party leadership to make that decision.
“Those people didn’t elect me,” he said. “The constituents did.”
Hinkle said he decided in December that he wouldn’t seek a seventh term serving portions of Wayne and Pike townships. He also said that while he admits he made mistakes, resigning would be an acknowledgement that everything the Gibsons told The Star was true.
But why, so many have asked, did he even make the email arrangement in the first place, using the email address — phinkle46@comcast.net — he had listed on his legislative website, no less?
“I don’t know,” Hinkle said. “I’m telling you, I don’t know.”
Usually he’s in control of his actions, he said, but something changed.
“I was on the road to self-destruction,” he said, “and I don’t know why.”
Hinkle said he’s not excusing his actions, which he called “stupid, but not illegal.” Both Hinkle and Kameryn Gibson say that money exchanged hands but that neither engaged in a sex act.
Hinkle also said Tuesday he’s not a homosexual.
“I say that emphatically,” he said. “I’m not gay.”
For now, he said, he’s focusing on talking to professionals “who understand that gray matter between your ears.” He wouldn’t be more specific about what kinds of professional help he is seeking or even why specifically he thinks he needs help.
Hinkle acknowledged he picked up Kameryn Gibson and drove him to the hotel, giving him $80 in the car. But when they arrived, Hinkle said, they simply made small talk about baseball and the view from the hotel — nothing further.
“I went to the edge,” Hinkle said, “but I didn’t fall over the edge.”
Hinkle then went to the bathroom, he said. When he came back out, he said Kameryn Gibson was gone — and so were his money clip, his business card holder, his BlackBerry and his iPad.
Hinkle said he thought Gibson found out he was a state lawmaker when he looked through the money clip.
After Gibson had left, Hinkle said he spoke with Megan Gibson via his hotel phone. He said she mentioned something about talking to Fox 59 and being offered $6,000.
Megan Gibson denies saying that. A spokesman for WXIN said the station does not pay for news stories.
At that point, Hinkle said, he thought maybe they were extorting him. Hinkle said that his daughter later met with Megan Gibson and retrieved the BlackBerry, as well as his business card holder and state identification.
Hinkle said he never met Megan Gibson in person, and hopes that he and his lawyer will find hotel security tapes that prove she never came up to the room.
Hinkle also forcefully denied Megan Gibson’s assertion that Hinkle’s wife called and offered them $10,000 to keep quiet.
“Anybody who knows my wife,” Hinkle told The Star’s political columnist, Matthew Tully, “knows she would not pay $10 to keep a mistake I made quiet, let alone $10,000.”
Kameryn and Megan Gibson on Tuesday both denied Hinkle’s assertions.
“We didn’t just talk about baseball,” Kameryn Gibson said. He also reasserted that Hinkle exposed himself, gave him things to keep quiet and tried to keep him in the hotel room.
“He did try to hold me (in the room),” Gibson said, “because we didn’t do what he wanted to do.”
Megan Gibson called Hinkle’s counter-allegations “crazy” and Hinkle “a liar.”
“My brother would never lie about nothing so petty like that,” Gibson said of Hinkle’s denying that he exposed himself or tried to keep Gibson in the room.
Hinkle said he does not plan to file a police report about the items he alleges the Gibsons stole.
“I got everything back but the iPad,” Hinkle said, “and quite frankly, if that makes them feel good, so be it.”
Hinkle told The Star that it will be difficult to return to the House floor. But what he plans to do between now and next election, he said later, “will be a family decision.”
He said that when he decided in December that this term would be his last, the idea was that he and his wife would take time to travel together.
“Hopefully,” he said, “she still wants me to.”
