"I'm straight," says Israeli man linked to gay governor's decision to resign

By Ramit Plushnick-Masti
The Associated Press

Golan Cipel denied trying to extort money.

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Golan Cipel told the Israeli daily newspaper Yediot Ahronot that McGreevey repeatedly made unwanted sexual advances. Cipel said that he informed the governor at one point that he planned to sue him for sexual harassment and that lawyers were negotiating a settlement when McGreevey resigned last week.

"It doesn't bother me that it is said I am gay, but I really am not. I'm straight. On the other hand, to accuse me of being an extortionist? Someone here has lost his mind," Cipel was quoted as telling Yediot.

McGreevey, who is married, announced his resignation Thursday, acknowledging he is gay and that he had an affair with a man.

Sources within the McGreevey administration named Cipel as the lover and said he had demanded millions of dollars to stay quiet.

In a news conference Friday, Cipel's attorneys denied the claims, saying McGreevey's attorney offered to pay if Cipel did not file a lawsuit. Allen Lowy, one of Cipel's New York attorneys, did not return a call yesterday seeking comment.

Sources in McGreevey's administration said Saturday that Cipel originally demanded $50 million but that the figure dropped to $5 million as negotiations progressed.

McGreevey, a Democrat, appointed Cipel as New Jersey's $110,000-a-year homeland-security adviser in 2002 without a background check or official announcement. The appointment was criticized, and Cipel was reassigned a few months later and soon left government.

Cipel said he wanted to forget about McGreevey after he left New Jersey and took a job in New York, but he said the governor continued to make unwanted contact.

"At first, it didn't occur to me that he was homosexual. The man looked happily married, he has children and his wife was very active in the campaign and election," Cipel said.

But on long nights of campaigning, Cipel said, "he hit on me over and over. I got to a point where I was afraid to stay with him alone."
 
Cipel, 35, was quoted as saying that he identified with the "feelings of victimization" that women feel when they are sexually harassed, and that he felt trapped.

"It didn't occur to me that it could also happen to a man, and it certainly didn't occur to me that it could happen to me," Cipel was quoted as saying. "Think about how scary it is when we are talking about a powerful man like the governor of the state of New Jersey."

McGreevey spokesman Micah Rasmussen disputed that claim yesterday, saying, "These are all false allegations by someone who's trying to exploit his relationship with the governor."

Meanwhile, a poll released yesterday showed McGreevey's approval rating has not suffered since he announced that he had had an affair with a man and will resign in November.

The governor's approval rating was 45 percent, 2 points higher than in a similar poll two weeks earlier, according to the Star-Ledger/Eagleton-Rutgers poll. Four hundred adults were polled Thursday and Friday. The margin of error is plus or minus 5 percentage points.