Rep Lauren Boebert’s claims in her newly released memoir, “My American Life”, that her husband was the real victim in a 2004 case where he was arrested and pleaded guilty to “public indecency and lewd exposure”.
When Ms Boebert’s husband, Jayson Boebert, was 24 years old, he was reportedly arrested and jailed after an incident at a Colorado bowling alley where he allegedly exposed himself to two young women.
By the right-wing lawmaker’s telling, this incident has been gravely misunderstood, as she goes on to claim in her book that her husband was in fact the real victim of harassment and was out enjoying a night out with his stepfather and then-girlfriend, Ms Boebert, 17 at the time and known as Lauren Roberts.
“The two of them went to the Rifle bowling alley and got to chatting over drinks,” Ms Boebert wrote, forgetting to include that she was out with the pair, as was originally reported in 2021 by Salon.
“The female bartender flirted with Jayson, having heard previously from his friends what a catch he’d be,” she continues. "They even teased her by saying he’d gotten a great tattoo in a private area, which made her curious, so she pressed Jayson to show it to her right there at the bar. He ignored her and was embarrassed she was doing it in front of my stepfather. She wouldn’t stop.”
At this point, her husband felt the need to settle the dispute, as Ms Boebert alleges.
“[He] decided he’d heard enough, stood up, and acted like he was going to unzip his pants,” she wrote. “Before he got that far, the owner of the bowling alley intervened.”
Ms Boebert’s version of events, however, diverges from the timeline and accounts that were provided to police and omits relevant details – including that she was there and spoke to authorities after the 2004 incident.
According to a witness statement obtained by Salon in 2021, Erica Anne Coombs, one of the two women who were involved in the 2004 incident, wrote at the time that after Mr Boebert had allegedly harassed a third person, identified as Nora, the then-24-year-old told Ms Coombs and a second woman, identified as Trisha Walies, that he had a tattoo on his penis.
“Trish and I were standing at the snack bar, and she came up and looked at my tattoo on my back, and she pulled down her sock and said, ‘look, my is fading,’” she wrote in the witness statement. “Then Jayson said, ‘I have a tattoo on my dick.’”
Ms Coombs wrote in the witness statement that Mr Boebert then approached the women from behind after they reportedly “turned away to ignore him” and “pulled his penis out of his pants”.
“His thumb was covering the head, and all I saw was the shaft. Trish and I turned away and went and told Larry,” she wrote, referring to the owner of the Fireside Lane bowling alley, Larry McCown.
Mr McCown then reportedly called the Garfield County sheriff’s department, and when deputies from the force arrived, the owner informed them that he had repeatedly asked Mr Boebert to leave the premises, but his requests had been rebuffed.
For his part, Mr Boebert told deputies that he had not in fact exposed himself but had instead pushed his thumb through the zipper of his pants, intending it to be a “prank”.
That account, however, was challenged in a second witness statement, this time from Ms Walies, who wrote: “I know that wasn’t a thumb because thumbs aren’t 6 inches long.”
Ms Boebert, who was also interviewed by deputies, claimed that she had not witnessed her then-boyfriend expose himself.
When the case proceeded, Mr Boebert pleaded guilty to public indecency and lewd exposure, and spent four days in jail and two years’ probation for the crime, according to an affidavit viewed by the New York Post.
In the book, Ms Boebert explains that her husband’s decision to plead guilty was not because he felt it was fair, but because the bartender involved in the incident was also 17 at the time, and he believed, she claims, the easier route was to take the plea deal instead of “fighting for his innocence in court”.
“He knew the truth —and the truth was, he didn’t do what he was accused of,” she wrote. “But the entire experience opened Jayson’s eyes to the reality that he needed the alcohol and anger management classes that came with the plea deal.”
She adds at the end of the divulgement of the ordeal that she blames “the Left” for not applauding him for his efforts for self-improvement following the incident she claims he was the real victim in to begin with.
