Congressional candidate Steve Montenegro acknowledged Thursday that he traded text messages for months with a junior legislative staffer, including receiving a topless photo from the woman. But he maintained he had done nothing inappropriate.

Montenegro, a minister who has made his family and faith central to his bid for a vacant West Valley congressional seat, said in an interview with the Washington Examiner published Thursday that he didn’t ask for the topless photo and tried to protect the woman’s career after the November incident.

“I want you to know I did not have any inappropriate relationships with this woman,” Montenegro told the Examiner, adding that he alerted his wife after receiving the photo. Montenegro, a Christian minister, has been married since 2009.

But at a Thursday afternoon news conference, the staffer, Stephanie Holford, said through her attorney that Montenegro had misrepresented the relationship.

“Now we see Senator Montenegro basically lying in the press about the affair and saying he never solicited anything,” attorney Tom Ryan said.

In her statement, read by Ryan, Holford said she and Montenegro had initially texted about work matters but “in a very short time” the conversations became personal.

“Over the months we began to flirt,” and eventually, she said, she felt comfortable enough to send pictures of herself “in various states of undress” and engage in conversations that were “detailed and intimate.”

“Senator Montenegro asked me to send them (pictures) on Snapchat instead. Because they were sent through Snapchat I do not have copies of them,” Holford said in the statement.

Pictures and videos sent through the Snapchat application self destruct. 

Calls to explain the matter

Beginning last week, The Arizona Republic reviewed dozens of the text messages between the staffer and Montenegro. 

Montenegro still has not responded to requests from The Republic to talk about the messages, including Thursday morning. His campaign adviser said Montenegro has no plans to speak publicly about the matter.

He previously described media accounts of the messages as “false tabloid trash.”

Montenegro’s comments to the Examiner come as he faces public calls from influential Republicans to better explain himself or quit the race.

The Examiner, based in Washington, D.C., is a conservative-leaning website that is a popular conduit for opinion pieces penned by some Republican members of Congress and other Beltway insiders. The Examiner article was based on a 20-minute phone interview with Montenegro, according to the story, which was labeled as opinion.

Montenegro has been endorsed by high-profile conservative Republicans, including U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

Voting ends Tuesday for the 8th District Republican and Democratic primaries.

‘Too comfy or familiar’

Montenegro told the Examiner that his Republican rival Debbie Lesko was using the texts to smear him, adding that he has never been “inappropriately involved with any staffer” during his more than eight years at the Arizona Capitol.

“Sadly this woman has become a victim of revenge porn of having her personal messages stolen and shopped around,” he said.

Lesko on Thursday called on Montenegro to release the messages. 

“Our former congressman resigned amid allegations of improper interactions with female staff members,” Lesko said in the statement, referencing Trent Franks, who stepped down in December. “It is important for the voters to know the full extent of the relationship between Mr. Montenegro and a female Senate staff member since Mr. Montenegro is running for Congress.”

Montenegro said he had not solicited any inappropriate material.

“If there is anything, I would say I’m guilty of it’s becoming too comfy or familiar as seen in some of those texts,” Montenegro said. “As soon as that episode happened,” he said he broke off all communication with the staffer.

“We didn’t speak,” he said.

That is consistent with the messages reviewed by the newspaper.

But Montenegro’s interest during their next conversation appears related to his own career. 

After his middle-of-the-night text lamenting the staffer had not attended the conference, Montenegro contacted her Dec. 7, within minutes of Franks’ announcing he was resigning from office.

“It’s crazy stuff happening,” he texted.

She responded, “did someone call you out?”

“Nope, he wrote.

She asked, “Are you afraid someone might?”

He wrote, “Just lining my ducks in order.”

“Yeah you would never ever have to worry about me,” she wrote. “So I hope that puts you at some ease. I just saw that Trent Franks thing.”

The Examiner story said Montenegro reached out to the staffer to make sure his congressional campaign would not harm her career.

“She texted me back to say that I didn’t need to worry because I hadn’t disrespected her in anyway (sic),” Montenegro said.

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‘You need to call me right now’

The next text from the staffer to Montenegro appears at 8:03 a.m. on Feb. 1.

“You need to call me right now,” she texted him. “Now.”

He did not respond.

The staffer’s urgent text was sent about an hour after a breakfast at a downtown Phoenix restaurant with Republican state Sen. Bob Worsley, of Mesa. The breakfast had been arranged the night before, on Jan. 31, according to the messages.

Worsley texted the staffer, “We would love to talk to you. Can you make this work?”

The staffer replied she could.

Worsley told The Republic on Thursday that he had arranged for an attorney to represent the staffer. “I wanted her to be protected and that was the purpose of the breakfast,” he said.

TALKING POLITICS: Listen to our Arizona politics podcast, The Gaggle, on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Stitcher or Google Play.

The woman was still employed by the Senate on Thursday, said Mike Philipsen, a spokesman for Senate Republicans.

With the knowledge of her supervisors, she has not been at work in recent days as news of the text messages became public.

‘Do you boo’

The Republic reported early Wednesday that the staffer and Montenegro had traded flirtatious text messages since at least June 2017, when the state Legislature was no longer in session.

In the exchanges with the staffer, they bantered about him repeatedly stopping by her office to say hi.

They talked about holiday plans, grocery shopping, and how, on the day of the recent solar eclipse, she was “lying around in pajamas and doing laundry.”

On Oct. 5, he wrote to her that he “just got back from a trip to El Salvador.” Montenegro, who immigrated to the U.S. from that country with his family when he was five, described it as a “diplomatic trip” that was amazing.

“Next time I see you I can share more,” he wrote. “14 secret service protection at all times. All week and motorcade for me. They really made sure I was safe and taken care of.”

She asked if that made him feel nervous.

“Not nervous just feel important,” he wrote, adding a smiley face.

His texts are consistent with records obtained Thursday from the Arizona Senate under the state Public Records Law. Those records included an agenda for a trip scheduled from in the fall.

A version of the agenda said “Montenegro and his delegation” were arrive Sept. 26 at the international airport in San Salvador, El Salvador and would spend their time meeting with entrepreneurs and various officials, including tourism and foreign affairs.

During that same Oct. 5 text exchange, the staffer wrote Montenegro she was in Tucson getting a drink with a colleague.

He wrote her, “…Do you boo do you.”

She mocked his use of slang for boyfriend or girlfriend.

“Just pop culture,” he wrote. “Was it bad?

She wrote, “Lol pop culture can change your life. You are watching all the Kardashian’s aren’t you.”

He said he wasn’t, but “I did hear it somewhere.”

‘Snap’

On Nov. 29 and Nov. 30, while attending an education conference in Nashville with colleagues, the two texted about his flight and hotel accommodations, how difficult it is to “trust anyone” in the political business, and what was on the conference lunch menu.

On Nov. 29, Montenegro texted his disdain for a former Senate education policy adviser, who Montenegro said was a shill for lobbyists and “thinks he knows it all. He doesn’t.”

“I’m glad he is bye bye,” Montenegro wrote. “Wait, did I say that out loud? Don’t repeat.”

The staffer texted that Nashville sounded like a “really cool city. Will you have time to check it out?”

He said “The music is the best … and not really. It’s only a day and a half conference … But I get the nights to check out a bit of the place.”

She writes, “Yeah I’d take a night and check out the music scene. I’m very jealous!”

Montenegro wrote, “Yup. And you should have told mike you wanted to come,” a reference to the staffer’s colleague, Mike Philipsen.

After a few more exchanges, he wrote her that she needed to tell her supervisors “that you want to ‘grow your understanding’ of a certain issue,” to get approval to attend conferences.

“And I think they want you to grow,” he wrote.

At 8:58 p.m. on Nov. 30, after about a dozen text messages between them, the staffer texts, “Did you explore tonight.”

Montenegro’s response: “I am now.”

“Ah where are you at,” the staffer asks, then texted a photo of herself in a bathroom, topless and smiling with her hair pulled over a shoulder.

“You have to delete these,” she writes.

“Snap,” Montenegro responded. He confirmed to the Examiner he uses Snapchat “mostly to share photos of his kids with family and friends.”

(In October, he had sent the staffer a Snapchat username via text: Smonten1981. Montenegro was born in 1981.) 

Hours later, Montenegro texts: “You should have come.” When he sent the message it was 1:35 a.m. in Tennessee.

Dan Nowicki and Kaila White contributed to this story.

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