Prosecutor in Craig case defends decision to arrest the senator in sex sting

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http://www.idahostatesman.com/newsupdates/story/303517.html

Prosecutor responds to Sen. Craig's appeal

An airport official refutes Craig's claim that his actions did not amount to disorderly conduct

Edition Date: 02/23/08


WASHINGTON - The prosecutor for the airport where Sen. Larry Craig was arrested in a sex sting disputes the Idaho Republican's claim that he was unfairly arrested.

Craig, who is trying to withdraw a guilty plea to disorderly conduct, was unsuccessful the first time and has petitioned the Minnesota Court of Appeals. Friday, the prosecutor filed a 242-page response to Craig's appeal.

An undercover officer arrested Craig on June 11 at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport, as part of an investigation into complaints about public sex in airport men's rooms. Craig later pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct but did not hire a lawyer or disclose to anyone that he had been arrested or pleaded guilty.

In his appeal, Craig has argued that police and prosecutors failed to prove that he engaged in disorderly conduct before his arrest. Although Craig pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor, his lawyers argue that the courts should allow him to withdraw his plea because his actions didn't match Minnesota's definition of disorderly conduct.

But the airport's prosecutor, Christopher Renz, disputed Craig's claim. The senator was clearly engaged in disorderly conduct, Renz wrote. That behavior allegedly included staring at an undercover officer though the crack in a toilet-stall door and then running his hand underneath the stall partition and tapping his feet - all signals the undercover officer interpreted as an attempt to solicit sex.

"Rather than reveling in his own privacy within his closed stall, he decided to penetrate the adjacent closed stall through multiple furtive movements of his eyes, feet and hands," Renz wrote. "It is this very calling of attention to himself and failing to remain within his closed stall that is the basis for the charges and the appellant's plea."