Former Congressman John Sweeney (aka Blutarski), (NY-20), now embroiled in divorce proceedings, claims his soon-to-be-ex-wife battered him. You've got to be kidding. He says he lied about the domestic violence police report that was released days before the election in November "to save his marriage". Conveniently, that lie painted him as being the subject of a sinister plot to get him by the State Police, or Kirsten Gillibrand, or whoever else he pointed fingers at. I point my finger at him in this one. I put my money on Blutarski as the abuser.
Albany Times-Union: Sweeney says he lied about domestic spat
Ex-congressman claims he wanted to shield wife from blame
JOHNSTOWN -- Former U.S. Rep. John Sweeney admitted to a gaggle of TV cameras Monday that he lied last year in a news conference when he said "there was no domestic violence" at his home.
Sweeney claimed he lied then to protect his wife because, he said, she was intoxicated and had assaulted him. The police report on that incident, which occurred late one night in December 2005, became public days before the November 2006 congressional election.
"I had to make a choice about whether my marriage was going to survive or I was staying in Congress," the Clifton Park Republican told the media, standing with his first wife, Betty Sweeney, and their three children. "If I stood up and told exactly what happened, I would have lost my marriage."
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Sweeney lost the election to Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand. His marriage fell apart eight months later. Sweeney, 51, filed for divorce July 11.
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He described Gayle Sweeney's physical mistreatment of him as "pretty extreme" and said he is afraid of her. Friday, in an interview with the Times Union, Mrs. Sweeney accused her husband of verbal and physical abuse.
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Meanwhile, domestic violence experts traveled to the Fulton County courtroom in support of Gayle Sweeney, saying John Sweeney's counter-accusations that he was injured are "a common tactic" in divorce cases.
Statistics prove that women rarely batter men, said Carole Fox of the Schenectady YWCA. "A lot of times, batterers will get orders of protection," she said.
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Last November, with her husband's congressional seat on the line, Gayle Sweeney, 36, made an 11th-hour campaign commercial accusing Gillibrand of leaking the report in a bid to win office. Mrs. Sweeney told the Times Union last week she was "coerced" by her husband's political advisers into making certain statements defending him on the eve of the election.
Albany Times-Union: Sweeney's wife claims he abused her
Says she fears for her life and that election eve denial was "coerced"
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