It was Sen. Peter Courtney’s chief of staff who contacted police about a YouTube video that appeared to show Sen. Jeff Kruse masturbating, Oregon State Police records show.
The records, obtained by The News-Review Thursday morning, also show Kruse gave a different explanation to police than he did to the news media about the events that led to the video being posted online.
Kruse had earlier told The News-Review that he knew nothing about the video until police contacted him, and that he had been having a conversation with a woman he had met through a dating website. But he told police he had been investigating possible video scam operations, and that he had pretended to masturbate during the video.
Police records indicate Kruse was interviewed Oct. 25 after police received a tip from Courtney’s Chief of Staff Betsy Imholt. Imholt alleged she was concerned because the caption under the video includes a reference to 9-year-old girls, and because she thought Kruse might be a victim of a crime. Police found no evidence 9-year-old girls had been involved in or seen the video; however, they investigated the incident as a possible crime against Kruse. If the video was recorded without his knowledge, he could be the victim of the crime of Unlawful Dissemination of an Intimate Image, police said.
Read the full story at the Roseburg News-Review.
