Ex-girlfriend: Kansas House candidate was abusive last year
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A former girlfriend said she was slapped and choked in late December by a 19-year-old Kansas House candidate who already has admitted to circulating revenge porn and abusive online behavior toward girls when he was younger.
Taylor Passow, a 21-year-old Topeka resident, told The Kansas City Star and The Topeka Capital-Journal that she stopped seeing Aaron Coleman in late January, before he launched his campaign for the Democratic nomination in a Kansas City, Kansas, district. Coleman narrowly defeated seven-term state Rep. Stan Frownfelter in the state’s Aug. 4 primary, and Frownfelter is running a write-in campaign for the Nov. 3 general election.
Many Democrats disavowed Coleman over incendiary social media posts and his admission in a Facebook post in June that allegations of revenge porn, blackmail and online harassment targeting several middle-school girls were true. He called his actions toward the girls those of “a sick and troubled 14-year-old boy” and said he had grown.
But during interviews with the two newspapers, Passow said Coleman was abusive after the two began dating late last year. She also said he sent her disturbing texts while they dated.
“He’s too much of a ‘my way is the right way, nobody else’s opinions matter, if nobody else shares his beliefs they’re just wrong,’ things like that,” she told The Star. “And he’s abusive. There’s just no reason to have somebody like that in office.”
Coleman did not immediately return a telephone message Thursday from The Associated Press seeking comment about Passow’s allegations. The Star and The Capital-Journal also said he did not respond to phone calls, texts and emails from them seeking comment.
Passow’s story prompted the Kansas Democratic Party to publicly disown Coleman as its nominee, with Chairwoman Vicki Hiatt saying Wednesday that he is unfit for the Legislature.
The Star said that in a text to Passow, Coleman disputed Passow’s version of how she was slapped and choked during a late-December get-together.
The two had checked into a Kansas City AirBnB on Christmas Day and stayed until Dec. 27, Passow said. The property had a hot tub, and the couple soaked in it during their final morning. She said he asked about having a threesome and attacked her when she joked about breaking up with him so that he could have one.
She said he jumped on her, choked her and slapped her three times. She told The Star that she also slapped him and got out of the hot tub.
But The Star reported that in a text message, Coleman later told her that she had “a funny memory” and that, “You dumped me and I smacked you and you smacked me and I immediately got up and stormed out of the hot tub.”
The incident followed one earlier in December, when Passow texted Coleman to tell him that she planned to hitchhike from Topeka to the Kansas City area to see him.
The Capital-Journal reported that he texted back: “I hope you get abducted raped chopped up and have ya pieces scattered and Burnt in different locations,” adding, “Read about it. dangerous for women to hitchhike.”
“One day, he even said, ‘If you get pregnant, I will have to kill you and the baby,’” Passow told The Capital-Journal.