At this point, if you say you're a Republican politician I have to wonder if you even recognize the concept of basic human decency, and that playing the victim is not just some sort of genetic defect common to all of them.

Source: Salt Lake Tribune

Cory Green, who last week announced his candidacy for Utah’s 1st Congressional District, was charged with four felonies in 2010, court records show. Two of the charges, for alleged forcible sexual abuse, were dismissed, while Green pleaded guilty to the remaining two charges after they were amended down to class A misdemeanors for sexual battery.

Court records also show that Green pleaded no contest in June of this year to two class B misdemeanor charges of attempted unlawful conduct related to allegedly working in private security without a license.

But Green maintained his innocence on both fronts during a Tuesday interview with The Salt Lake Tribune, and said he was effectively coerced into making a guilty plea after being victimized and extorted by a young woman who posed as a massage therapist, and said he has been the target of politically motivated abuses by law enforcement in the ensuing years.

And what were the misdemeanors? They stemmed from paying for sex with an underage girl, of course.

In one event, he was accused of taking two teens to a Motel 6, paid them for a massage, then had an escort perform a sex act in the girls’ presence. Later, he was accused of paying one of the girls for a massage that escalated to a sex act.

Green said that the girl told him she was 23, and that she appeared to him to be older than she was. He compared his experience to the allegations of sexual misconduct leveled against U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was confirmed to the high court by a 50-48 vote of the Senate last year.

“I was victimized in this instance, just like Brett Kavanaugh has been victimized,” Green said. “The only difference is I didn’t have a lot of money to continue playing the game."