A Pennsylvania mayor has resigned from office after he was charged with soliciting a prostitute.
Bloomsburg Mayor Eric Bower, 36, was arrested on April 20 at a Hampton Inn after he allegedly showed up to the motel with $200 cash and condoms.
Police said he paid a state police informant for sex on several occasions with the most recent being in early April.
Bloomsburg Mayor Eric Bower, 36, was arrested on April 20 at a Hampton Inn in Pennsylvania after he allegedly showed up to the motel with $200 cash and condoms
Officials said Bower, who claimed after his arrest that he had been set up, resigned as mayor on Thursday.
The day after his arrest on four misdemeanor prostitution counts, Bower said the woman was a friend with whom he had a ‘very playful, you know, relationship’.
Bower said he planned to fight the charges.
‘I believe this was just a setup because of my political position,’ Bower said.
State police troopers said in an affidavit they discovered ‘during the course of an ongoing investigation’ that Bower had been paying for sex from one of their confidential informants.
Police did not say more about the nature of the probe.
Bower, a Democrat, was elected in November.
Bower, a Democrat who was elected in November, stepped down from his mayoral position on Thursday after being charged with prostitution
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said on Thursday that Bower had waived a preliminary hearing on the charges and vacated the mayor’s office.
He also stepped down from his post as a state constable.
‘This mayor flouted the law and solicited sex from a prostitute on multiple occasions,’ Shapiro said.
Bower’s attorney, Patrick O’Connell, said that Bower resigned for the good of Bloomsburg, a college town of more than 14,000 about 130 miles northwest of Philadelphia.
‘The town of Bloomsburg needs to focus on the tasks that it needs to focus on, running an efficient local government, which is challenging enough. But these charges caused a circus environment. Eric Bower recognized that and for the better of the town, decided to resign,’ O’Connell said.
O’Connell declined comment on whether Bower still planned to contest the charges.
Bower did not immediately return a call for comment.