Candidate Whitcomb explains restraining orders

Gives explanation for 3 restraining orders in 1995

By David Montero, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published October 11, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
Updated October 11, 2008 at 1:03 a.m.

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State Senate candidate Joe Whitcomb said the three restraining orders a woman obtained against him 13 years ago stemmed from behavior that was "dumb" rather than malicious.

The orders - dated October, November and December of 1995 - are short on details and the woman when contacted by the Rocky said Whitcomb never threatened or harmed her in the course of their two-month relationship.

According to one of the orders, the woman said that she feared for her safety - though Whitcomb said he never saw her after they broke up.

"He would not stop calling me. He would not stop following me," the woman said in a telephone interview.

"He sent unwanted gifts that were returned. He was told repeatedly to leave me alone and that didn't work."

Whitcomb was an Army Ranger stationed in Alaska at the time and said he was going through a divorce with his first wife.

They were married in 1991 and the divorce was final in 1996.

Whitcomb said the woman he began living with was also coming out of a marriage and that they were together two months.

Then, Whitcomb said, he left for Louisiana for a month on Army business and when he came back, the woman was gone. Whitcomb said he didn't know why and, after trying to talk to her about it and not succeeding, he left a rose and note on the windshield of her car.

That was when the first restraining order was issued.

"When you're 25 and you're certain you're in love with somebody, you might do something silly like put a rose on their car. When you're 25, you might make bad decisions about who you want to be with," Whitcomb said.

"But I didn't do anything at all that was remotely threatening to anybody to warrant a restraining order against me. I was a lovestruck kid at 25 years old trying to win back a girl he cared about."

Whitcomb said when he showed up in court on the restraining orders, the woman did not. Each was dismissed, according to court records.

The second one, he said, resulted from his efforts to get rent money she owed him.

The third, he said, was issued just before he left Alaska. Whitcomb said he was trying to return some things to her and dropped them off at her work when she wasn't there.

The woman said she stands by the statements in the restraining order - including the one where she says she is afraid he is stalking her.

"It's 110 percent true," she said.

Whitcomb, however, said that while he made mistakes in trying to win her back, he never meant her harm.

"It was obviously inept, but it wasn't mean-spirited, unkind or threatening in any way," he said.

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