Kelley: I knew I was being stalked
2013-01-22 22:46
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Washington - The woman caught up in the scandal that
brought down CIA director David Petraeus said on Tuesday she decided not to
press charges against his mistress over allegedly threatening e-mails.
The scandal erupted last year after Jill Kelley, a
wealthy Tampa, Florida socialite, complained to the FBI that she had received
menacing e-mails from an anonymous sender.
The e-mails turned out to be from Paula Broadwell, an army
reservist who had written a glowing biography of Petraeus's tenure as a top
military commander.
Authorities then stumbled upon evidence of Broadwell's
affair with Petraeus, as well as exchanges between Kelley and the four-star
officer in charge of the war in Afghanistan, General John Allen.
Kelley said the media frenzy over the case had been a
nightmare for her family and denied she had any romantic relationship with
General Allen.
Although she alleged Broadwell's e-mails amounted to a
bid to "blackmail" her, Kelley said she chose not to press charges
against Petraeus's biographer.
In the e-mails sent by Broadwell, "there was
blackmail, extortion, threats," Kelley told The Daily Beast's media
reporter Howard Kurtz, in her first interview since the scandal broke.
"I knew I was being stalked," she said.
She declined to speculate on Broadwell's motives and also
said she found media reports that the two were romantic rivals "bizarre”.
But though she was frightened and turned to an FBI friend
for help, she opted against pushing for charges against Broadwell.
Kelley said she was concerned how the case would affect
her friends and their families.
"I just wanted to let them move on with their lives
and not have to relive it," she said.
She also dismissed allegations she had exchanged
thousands of e-mails with General Allen, whose correspondence with Kelley is
the subject of an investigation by the defence department's inspector general.
Kelley said she believes the number of e-mails with Allen
were in the hundreds and not thousands and denied she had any romantic
relationship with the general, who is soon to step down from his post in Kabul.
But she declined to release the e-mails she exchanged
with Allen.
Kelley, who is married to an oncologist in Tampa, Florida,
volunteered as a "social liaison" organising events at nearby MacDill
Air Force Base, home to US Central Command (Centcom).
From October 2008 until the summer of 2010, Petraeus was
head of Centcom and the Petraeus and the Kelley families became friends.
- SAPA
