Report: Florida Governor Charlie Crist paid to hide gay affairs

Tallahassee - Rumors that former Florida governor Charlie Crist is gay have been around for years, but new allegations have surfaced that he had affairs with two men and paid them to leave the state to avoid embarrassment.

The allegations are made in Discovery documents related to Jim Greer's case involving alleged illegal use of Republican Party funds, according to a 10 News WTSP report. Damon Chase, attorney for Greer, who is set to go to trial on July 30 for allegedly paying himself to raise money for the Republican Party of Florida, says Crist is homosexual and once tried to kiss his client at a Beverly Hills, Calif. hotel. Greer, who faces criminal charges, implicated Crist in the investigation early on by maintaining the former governor approved his alleged illegal dispursement of Republican Party funds. Crist left the Republican Party and ran for the U.S. Senate as an Independent in 2010, but lost to Senator Marco Rubio. Besides allegations that he forced himself on Greer, Chase claims in the Discovery documents that Crist had drunken escapades while governor that included trying to run over people with a golf cart while driving drunk and paying two men he had gay relationships with to leave the state. Chase told John Morgan of Morgan and Morgan, the law firm where Charlie Crist presently works, that if he were deposed, Crist would be embarrassed. Morgan said if the former Governor were a homosexual, it would have nothing to do with the case and he would “have to be a 'sick s.o.b. to try to kiss Porky the Pig,’ a reference to the rather rotund Greer. Morgan likened the allegations to a cheap lawyer trick such as asking “when did you stop beating your wife” or “when was the last time he had sex "with your neighbor's sheep." However Morgan reportedly used a more graphic term in place of sex. Democrats have used the Greer scandal, however unsuccessfully, to exploit Republicans and help their campaigns. Many Democrats speculate the Greer trial could also embarrass Speaker Dean Cannon, Senate President Mike Haridopolos, State Senator John Thrasher, former Senator George LeMieux and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio.