According to Henry Gomez from The Plain Dealer, Ed Fitzgerald was found by police in a parked car with a woman in 2012.
A witness, an electrician working after-hours nearby, believed something was amiss, according a recording of his call to police. Westlake police provided that recording, as well as other audio files of police communication from that morning and a copy of a “call for service report,” to the Northeast Ohio Media Group in response to a request.
“I don’t know if they’re having sex in the parking lot or what they’re doing here,” the witness said in his call.
“I don’t know if they don’t notice all my lights inside and they’re just [inaudible] something, but all I keep seeing is like something going back and forth, and I’m like, eh, you know what, this is a little fishy,” the witness added. “And I know the owner here wouldn’t really want this here.”
Yikes.
Joe Vardon of the Dispatch reports that Fitzgerald has cancelled two campaign events today to hold a news conference.
Fitzgerald is expected to maintain at the press conference that there is a perfectly innocent explanation to this. We will keep you updated.
UPDATE: Fitzgerald apparently told the Plain Dealer that he and the woman got lost looking for the woman’s hotel.
Fitzgerald got lost in a suburb in his own county? Just a few miles from his own home? Note the map of the county Ed runs below. He lives in Lakewood and was caught in Westlake. Not very convincing.
UPDATE: Fitzgerald just cancelled the press conference. According to WKYC, Fitzgerald was going to somehow shift blame for this story onto Westlake Mayor Dennis Clough.
UPDATE: Presser still on?
.@brianrhester says @FitzGeraldForOH presser is still a go, contrary to rumors
— Jeremy Pelzer (@jpelzer) August 1, 2014
UPDATE: The press conference is apparently still on, but Fitz is late. He has released the following statement:
“We are extremely disappointed at the personal attacks being levied against our family,” FitzGerald and his wife Shannon said in a joint statement Friday afternoon. ” And equally upset that our friends in Ireland are being unjustly dragged into this negative campaign.” ” We are confident that this attack will be exposed for what it is – untrue and opportunistic – and, hope that we can quickly move onto the the discussion of what is best for Ohio’s families. We’re extremely proud of our family, and the support system we’ve provided to one another for the last 23 years. No matter what happens in this campaign or in November, that will never change.”
What attacks? People are asking questions. Fitzgerald seems extremely defensive to attacks that I have not seen levied.
UPDATE: Unbelievable.
He’s actually lashing out at John Kasich, and blaming Kasich for Ed being found by police alone with a woman who isn’t his wife at 4:30AM.
He apparently believes that getting caught like this doesn’t look questionable at all.
So here’s the situation:
- Ed Fitzgerald was found by police parked in his car with a woman who is not his wife.
- Police were responding to a 911 call from a witness who described seeing “something going back and forth” and reported that the car had been there for 30 minutes.
- This was brought to the public by unbiased journalists.
- Ed says he was lost, even though he runs the county and was only a few miles from home.
But this is all because of…John Kasich!?
This strategy was a horrible idea for Fitzgerald. No person in their right mind looks at this situation and thinks it isn’t suspicious. The faux outrage isn’t going to go over well with undecided voters.
Also…note that Fitzgerald is still refusing to turn over his key card data that would show when he exits and enters the county parking garage. Now more than ever, Ed looks like he’s hiding something.
