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- <text id=89TT0435>
- <title>
- Feb. 13, 1989: American Notes:Congress
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Feb. 13, 1989 James Baker:The Velvet Hammer
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 41
- American Notes
- CONGRESS
- Dangerous Liaison
- </hdr><body>
- <p> Though tales of libidinous mischief on Capitol Hill are not
- exactly rare, the allegations that surfaced last week about the
- sexual conduct of an Ohio Congressman came as something of a
- shock. In a conversation secretly videotaped by a Columbus
- television station last November, Republican Donald Lukens
- talked with Anna Coffman, an unemployed widow, in a fast-food
- restaurant about his relationship with the woman's daughter,
- now 17. "I couldn't understand a man in your position, why
- you're messin' around with these teenagers," said Coffman.
- Replied Lukens, who turns 58 this week: "I didn't really know
- she was a teenager. I do now, of course."
- </p>
- <p> Coffman's daughter told the station that Lukens had twice
- paid her for sex: in 1985, when she was 13, and again last
- year. In his videotaped chat with the mother, Lukens seemed to
- suggest that he might arrange a Government job for her. Though
- the FBI says there is no evidence that the lawmaker was offering
- Coffman a bribe in exchange for her silence, the Franklin
- County prosecutor is considering whether to file criminal
- charges against the Congressman. Lukens, who has been divorced
- since 1983, refused to comment.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
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