Hot Tub Time Machine

Utah's House majority leader said late Thursday he paid a woman $150,000 to keep silent about going nude "hot-tubbing" with her when she was a minor a quarter century ago.

In a shocking statement on the House floor, Kevin Garn, 55, of Layton said he paid her to keep quiet about the incident during his unsuccessful U.S. congressional bid in 2002, but did not have sexual contact with her.

Garn said the woman, who he didn't identify on the floor, has been calling news outlets and that he wanted to be open about the incident that occurred when he was 28 years old, before any stories appeared.

A woman identifying herself as Cheryl Maher told The Salt Lake Tribune that she and Garn were in a hot tub nude when she was 15 years old.

"This has just been a nightmare for me," Maher said in a telephone interview with the newspaper from New Hampshire. "I just want to tell the truth because it's part of the healing process for me."

Garn told The Associated Press early Friday that Maher was the woman and that they were nude during a "spur of the moment" skinny dip. He said she worked for him in a warehouse.

House members gave him thunderous applause for his honesty and embraced him. As majority leader, Garn was the House's point man on a series of legislative ethics bills this year that were designed to restore the public's faith in the Legislature after recent accusations of bribery.

"While this payment felt like extortion, I also felt like I should take her word that the money would help her heal. She agreed to keep this 25-year-old incident confidential. Now that this issue is coming up again, it is apparent to me that this payment was also a mistake," Garn said.

"Although we did not have any sexual contact, it was still clearly inappropriate -- and it was my fault," Garn said.