Hinkle Comes Clean About $80 "Good Time" ... Sort Of

Denying claims that he is gay or that sex was ever on the agenda, Indiana state representative Phillip Hinkle has admitted to paying a young man $80 in the hope of having "a really good time."

All he's gotten, it seems, are a reduction of his professional responsibilities and requests for his resignation.

On August 12, The Indianapolis Star reported that Hinkle, 64, answered an ad on Craigslist placed by a young man looking for a "sugga daddy," and offered the young man $80 plus tip to spend time with him at a local hotel.

The young man, Kameryn Gibson, 18, met up with the politician at a local hotel but claims he got cold feet when he found out Hinkle was a lawmaker. Gibson says Hinkle tried to forcibly keep him from leaving, exposed himself, and then offered Gibson and his sister $100 cash, an iPad, and a BlackBerry in exchange for their silence about the encounter.

Hinkle, who called his own actions "stupid, but not illegal," says he never exposed himself and that the above-mentioned items were stolen by the Gibsons while the lawmaker was in the bathroom.

"These people," Hinkle said, "are lying through their teeth."

Kameryn and his sister are standing by their story.

House speaker Brian Bosma announced Tuesday that he was stripping Hinkle of his chairmanships of the Government and Regulatory Reform Committee and the Interim Study Committee on Driver Education. He also called on Hinkle to step down from his position as a state representative, saying he should take time to focus on his personal life.

"His continued service in the Indiana House is a distraction from that priority," Bosma said via statement, "and a detriment to the continuing work of the legislature."

Hinkle said resigning would be an acknowledgment that the Gibsons' version of the encounter was the truth.

When asked why he had contacted Gibson and why he had used his personal email address, Hinkle replied, "I don't know. I'm telling you, I don't know."

He also denied that he's a homosexual. "I say that emphatically," he said. "I'm not gay."

Read the full story here.