More On Goldsmith's Domestic Violence Arrest

The Goldsmith family continues in full damage control mode following the NY Post's disclosure yesterday that Steve Goldsmith was forced out as New York's Deputy Mayor following his arrest in late July at his home in Georgetown for domestic violence after his current wife, Margaret, telephoned police. Goldsmith spent two days in jail but Margaret declined to press charges against him. The couple now insist the entire matter was a complete misunderstanding. The Star's Mary Beth Schneider has more on what Margaret is saying about the incident:

In an exclusive email interview with The Indianapolis Star, Margaret Goldsmith said she called police July 30 after an argument over a "very personal and family-related matter."

"I wanted Steve to leave the house and I was too tired to deal with it by myself," she said. "Neither one of us had slept in two nights. Judgment is clouded when exhaustion sets in." . . .

The report -- which both Goldsmiths claim is not accurate -- said the two had a "verbal altercation" and that she told him, "I should have put a bullet through you years ago."

Margaret Goldsmith told The Star that was "a snide, snarky response to an old issue. I explained that to the police more than once. They knew it was not a legitimate statement or intended to be anything other than irritating."

Goldsmith's former wife, Melissa Martin, also defended her ex-husband against charges he is a domestic abuser. She tells Schneider:

One person with more reason to know Stephen Goldsmith's character than most backs up the couple's insistence that there was no violence: his first wife, Melissa Martin.

His arrest on such charges was "the last thing in the world I would have anticipated. . . . I'm stunned."

Martin said she first learned of his arrest Thursday morning when a New York reporter called her.

"You could have just knocked me off my chair with a feather," she said. "Steve is so measured in his thoughts and his words and his actions that it was just unbelievable to me."

Wow!. That's all I can say. I guess some of her friends have been tellling some very tall tales all of these years about her rocky marriage to Steve.

There is more fallout to the story back in New York. Mayor Michael Bloomberg is coming under fire for covering up Goldsmith's arrest following his abrupt departure last month. The NY Post has more on that developing firestorm:

Furious city officials yesterday blasted Mayor Bloomberg for hiding former Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith's ugly secret -- that he resigned because he'd been busted for allegedly attacking his wife in their luxurious Washington home.

But instead of coming clean on why he had kept his mouth shut last month, Bloomberg ran for cover, spending the day ducking reporters who wanted to ask about The Post's bombshell revelation that Goldsmith was done in by his temper, not by his poor performance during the Christmas blizzard.

Last night, Bloomberg abruptly canceled an event on the Circle Line with a German-American friendship group, where an organizer announced the mayor would be absent because of an "emergency."  

He also pulled the plug on his weekly live-radio program today . . .

An editiorial in the NY Post is also criticizing Bloomberg for his lack of transparency:
"It’s utterly inexplicable that no announcement of the arrest was made -- and even yesterday the mayor’s office was refusing substantive comment. Not good enough, Mr. Mayor. Explain yourself."

This entire incident has me thinking about an incident that occurred a couple of years ago in the Ballard administration. An official in the administration abruptly and unexpectedly resigned. A police officer, who wished to remain anonymously, contacted me and told me that the official had resigned following a second call to the official's home for reported domestic violence. No arrest was made in either call according to the police officer after the complaining party declined to push for charges. I checked police incident reports and could find no documentation of the two incidents, which police are required to complete in domestic violence runs even if an arrest doesn't take place. Without the documentation, I chose not to report on the incident, but in light of Goldsmith's arrest, it really makes me wonder what happened in that official's case. Was there a cover up?