They say politics is a dirty game, and that’s certainly the case in Baltimore right now.
38-year-old Kelly Cross is an openly gay legal technical consultant and volunteer civic activist. He’s also one of seven candidates currently running in the Democratic primary for the Baltimore City Council. And he has a sex scandal on his hands.
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A little backstory: In 2009, Cross pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of voyeurism as part of a plea bargain. The plea came after he confessed to secretly recording a half naked man, who happened to be a former Boston police officer and former prosecutor with the D.C. Office of the Attorney General, as he undressed inside a gym locker room. Police later uncovered video on Cross’s camera that showed several seconds of the man in the locker room. A Superior Court judge sentenced Cross to 180 days in jail, three years of supervised probation and a $50 fine.
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Cut to seven years later. Cross is in the home stretch of a hotly contested primary race for Baltimore City Council against six other Democratic candidates. He thought that whole locker room voyeurism thing was behind him. Turns out, it wasn’t.
Related: These Locker Room Confessions Will Make You Renew That Gym Membership…Or Cancel It
In the past couple of weeks, at least two different anti-Cross fliers have begun circulating around town. One of them wrongly accuses him of being a “convicted sex offender.” The other exposes his 2009 arrest and includes web addresses to articles about his case, including a 47-page report released by a Hearing Committee of the D.C. Court of Appeals Board on Professional Responsibility last year recommending he have his license to practice law suspended after pleading guilty to “criminal acts reflecting adversely on honesty, fitness, or trustworthiness.”
Cross tells the Washington Blade that the fliers are “homophobic and aimed at discrediting his campaign to become Baltimore’s first out gay member of the City Council.”
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He also says he regrets accepting the plea bargain back in 2009, claiming he was intimidated into doing so after police raided his and his husband’s apartment and confiscated their laptops and cell phones. Nothing improper or illegal was ever uncovered on their equipment, and it was later returned to them “wiped clean.”
“In retrospect I should have done that probably–fought harder,” Cross says. “But it seemed like it was going to be too much money and too little upside, especially when all they’re saying to you is pay this fine and take probation and we’ll leave you alone.”
“It was just like OK, fine, leave me alone. This whole thing is going to go away,” he continues. “But it hasn’t.”
Cross believes he knows who might be responsible for the fliers, but he doesn’t want to publicly identify them at this time, though he has begun the process of filing a formal complaint against them.
The Democratic primary election for the Baltimore City Council will be held on April 26.
Christopher Strenge
This would have to make John Waters smile.
Tackle
Damn he’s a nice looking guy! But that aside, he cannot be surprised that someone running for office, any office or in his case, a seat on the Baltimore city council, that opponents,non-supports or anyone with an ax to grind would/will bring up his past regarding that incident. And if it’s the truth, I wouldn’t necessarily call it dirty politics. Lies: etc are dirty politics. People have a right to know the decisions that their potential representatives made as adults…
tdh1980
How is it that I live in Baltimore and have yet to hear or see anything about this in the local news media or from any of the usual town busy bodies? It seems like this story would have caught on by now.
Masc Pride
So he’s calling the fliers “homophobic” and claims everyone is just out to stop him from being the first out Baltimore council member…never mind that he was totally busted for being a peeping Tom (which is probably the most creepy thing a guy can do). Someone needs to tell this guy that’s not how the victim card works.
DMRX
This guy is an idiot to think this wouldn’t come back to bite him.
More to the story here:http://www.washingtonblade.com/2016/03/31/homophobic-scare-tactics-in-baltimore-race/
Anyone who runs for any public office should assume that matters of public record will come out.
Keith TasteeAries Black-Dupree
Paco
He got caught doing the very thing in locker rooms that straight guys panic about and is now crying homophobia when his past creepy locker room behavior resurfaces? No honey, that is politics and straight politicians always have their past dirt brought up when they run for office too.
zooby
@Paco: Exactly. We don’t want this creepy POS. This isn’t a gay issue at all. I hope he loses.
Darnell Hill
I discontinued my membership at a popular NY Gym because People stopped hiding their Cameras. I didn’t want to get undressed in front of anyone, for fear that I would go online and see my nakedness all over the Web.
Captain Obvious
I dunno why this weird pic snapping thing even happens. There are even people taking pics of guys in public places to post online later without their consent. It’s beyond creepy.
Will L
@Masc Pride: My thoughts exactly. Well stated.
These don’t sound like false accusations in the least. He doesn’t need to be in public office.
Me2
He deserves every bit of this exposure. What he did speaks to his character and gives voters an idea of just how sneaky and sleazy he can be. The arrogance that allows him to try to spin this as dirty homophobic politics should be the nail in the coffin of his political career. Simply put; he’s untrustworthy.
Bob LaBlah
I do wish more details were available as to how he got caught. It does seem a bit odd that non of the local newspaper picked up on this story. It seems to be a non issue with everyone except the guy who got caught doing what he KNEW damn well he had no business doing in the first place.
Sluggo2007
@tdh1980: Try reading a newspaper or watching the news.
Tyrone Johnston
Why we he run for public office, in Baltimore no less, with that kind of criminal history?