Election Shocker: Il. Dem. Lieut. Gov. Nominee's Domestic Violence Arrest

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

Scott Lee Cohen -- a pawnbroker who shocked state Democratic leaders Tuesday night by winning the party's nomination for lieutenant governor -- was arrested about four-and-a-half years ago and accused of holding a knife to a former live-in girlfriend's neck, newly obtained court records show.

The misdemeanor charge against Cohen was dropped weeks later when the woman -- who had just been found guilty of prostitution -- failed to show up to testify, according to those records.

This isn't the only piece of information Republicans might try to use against the Democratic gubernatorial ticket, the other half of which was being sorted out as Gov. Quinn and Dan Hynes ran neck-and-neck with ballots still to be counted.

Cohen's Oct. 14, 2005, arrest came five months after his wife filed for divorce and convinced a judge to give her a temporary order of protection, records show. A status hearing in the divorce case took place Wednesday, hours after Cohen's election-night triumph.

Mark Brown of the Chicago Sun-Times has more:

Let the record reflect that on the very day last March that Scott Lee Cohen announced his campaign for lieutenant governor of Illinois, he voluntarily disclosed he had once been arrested in what he described as a domestic battery case involving a live-in girlfriend.

It seems only fair to point that out now that Cohen is the surprise winner of the Democratic primary -- and everybody is suddenly digging into his background and trying to figure out who he is -- beyond that carefully crafted image as "the only candidate who is doing something about the economy."


The problem for Cohen was that he made his announcement to me, and I wasn't taking him very seriously.

How was I to know way back then that the Democratic voters of Illinois would be so dumb as to elect him, brainwashed by millions of dollars in advertising about his job fairs?

The way Illinois politics works is : Cohen will be on the Democrat ticket for Governor come November. Chicago voters elected a high ranking made member of the Chicago Mob for 23 years to Chicago's City Council. Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been identified by a top FBI informant as a bookmaker for the Chicago Mob years ago. Is Scott Lee Cohen any less ethically challenged than Blago or Alderman Fred Roti?