DANA ROHRABACHER IS NOT THE GOP PERVERT DU JOUR-- HIS FORMER AIDE IS THOUGH

When people in Washington lower their voices and talk about who the congressional closet queens are Dana Rohrabacher is always mentioned. It doesn't make it true; it's a rumor that's been around for years that never goes away. I don't know if he's gay or not gay. I do know he has a voting record that shows he is clearly a homophobic bigot. The 2 links are for the roll calls he participated in involving gay right and involving hate crimes bills. He scored zero on both sets of votes. Zero. That would translate into there not being one member of Congress more willing to express hatred and prejudice towards gay people than Dana Rohrabacher. Counter-intuitively, this kind of record is often a sign among closeted Republicans that they are panic-stricken homosexuals themselves, living in a world of pain and self-loathing.

When one of Rohrabacher's aides, Jeffrey Nielsen, was first arrested for raping a 14 year old boy, the congressman did everything he could to cover-up his close relationship with Nielsen, as has been famously covered by the OC Weekly.

Fairy Tale #1: Rohrabacher said Nielsen worked for him for a few months after Nielsen graduated from college.

Reality: Rohrabacher handpicked Nielsen to relocate from Orange County to Virginia and serve as his congressional aide in D.C. While working for Rohrabacher for more than half a year, Nielsen allegedly spent his spare time molesting a 7th-grade boy.

Fairy Tale #2: Rohrabacher said he had no idea what Nielsen did in his personal life.

Reality: Rohrabacher vouched for Nielsen's character in a personal letter of recommendation he wrote to get his hand-picked pal into USC's law school.

Yesterday Nielsen, who pleaded guilty, was given an extraordinarily light sentence: 3 years in prison. The publicity in the local Republican Party propaganda sheet, the Orange County Register couldn't have pleased Rohrabacher, just as he's about to embark on the toughest re-election fight of his career, which puts the clownish congressman/Taliban sympathizer up against the much-admired mayor of Huntington Beach, Debbie Cook. The Register has Rohrabacher's name all over the tawdry and tragic story.

A legislator's former aide was sentenced today to three years in state prison for molesting two boys – including an Orange County youth he met on the Internet.

Jeffrey Ray Nielsen, 37, of Ladera Ranch, was expecting the sentence, after pleading guilty in December to two felonies: lewd acts upon a child under age 14 and lewd acts upon a child between 14 and 15.

Nielsen, a lawyer and former aide to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), was arrested by Westminster police in May 2003 after authorities found thousands of images of pornography on both his work and personal computers. He was also accused of molesting a second boy, a 13-year-old Virginia resident, while he worked in Rohrabacher's Washington D.C. office in 1994.

Authorities said he brought the Virginia boy to California from Virginia in July of that year to visit his family in Fountain Valley, and repeatedly abused the boy for the two-week period. He also molested the boy for more than a year and a half prior the California visit.

The Orange County youth, a 14-year-old, was abused in March 2003 after meeting Nielsen on a gay Internet site.

Nielsen's first trial ended in a hung jury in 2007, but prosecutors re-filed charges, resulting in his guilty plea. Today, Nielsen was taken into custody after being sentenced by Orange County Superior Court Judge David A. Thompson.

Besides working for Rohrabacher, Nielsen also worked on an Assembly campaign of Scott Baugh, chairman of the Republican Party of Orange County.