Thursday, Jun. 25, 2009

E-mails detail intimate affair

E-mails obtained by The State newspaper in December detailed an affair between Gov. Mark Sanford and Maria, a woman in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

However, attempts to verify the e-mails — from an anonymous source — were fruitless, until Wednesday. Then, acting on another anonymous tip that Sanford would be on a plane returning from Argentina, the paper sent a reporter to Atlanta.

When Sanford got off a plane from Buenos Aires, he stopped an interview with The State when asked if he had been with anyone in Argentina.

The State then contacted Sanford’s office and a former aide, explicitly saying it had e-mails between the governor’s personal e-mail address and an Argentine woman and thought them to be genuine.

Sanford’s office subsequently scheduled a news conference, at which time the governor confessed to an affair.

Late Wednesday, the governor’s office said it would not dispute the authenticity of the e-mails.

The e-mails, published in today’s newspaper and at thestate.com, sound like Sanford.

There is talk of Coosaw, his Beaufort plantation, and his love of digging holes on the property. The e-mails refer to his known public schedule — a governor’s meeting and an audition for the Republican vice presidential nomination with John McCain.

One e-mail from Sanford’s personal address also referred to the Bible, a Sanford favorite. In response, his Argentine lover recommended an economics book, another Sanford favorite.

The e-mails also match much of what Sanford said at his Wednesday news conference: That his sexual relationship with the Argentine woman grew from a much-longer friendship, that it started about a year ago and that the woman has two sons.

From Sanford’s e-mail address to the woman: “I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificently gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curves of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of night’s light — but hey, that would be going into the sexual details ...”

The State has removed the woman’s full name and other personal details, including her address, e-mail address and children’s names.

A McClatchy special correspondent, Angeles Mase, Wednesday visited the 14-story apartment building in Buenos Aires where, according to the e-mails that included her address, the woman lives. . The woman at the address answered to the name in the e-mails and, at first, agreed to speak to a visitor, but she declined after the visitor identified herself as a reporter.

The doorman at the building, shown a photograph of Sanford, said he did not recognize him. According to the doorman, the woman has two sons, one a teenager of driving age and the other younger. The e-mails refer to the woman’s two sons.

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