Embattled former minuteman leader and ex-J.D. Hayworth advisor Chris Simcox has come out swinging against estranged wife Alena Simcox and former minuteman associate (now nemesis) Stacey O'Connell.
You'll recall, from a story I broke in early June, that Alena Simcox claimed in a petition for an order for protection granted in April that Simcox had threatened to kill her, their children, and any cops who responded to the call. On another occasion, Alena said Simcox had asked her to shoot him, and then again threatened to shoot his family and police officers.
Simcox enemy and bounty hunter Stacey O'Connell leapt into the story not long after my initial report, issuing a "Wanted" poster for Simcox. He stated that he (O'Connell) was working on Alena's behalf and trying to locate Simcox, whose whereabouts were then unknown.
(O'Connell, it should be noted, was once a member of Simcox's now-defunct Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, but broke with Simcox and the organization in 2007 over allegations of financial impropriety on Simcox's part.)
Now, in a new edition of his online "Simcox Report," Simcox lashes out at his wife and O'Connell, alleging that they were "engaged in an adulterous romantic affair." Simcox also writes that O'Connell and Alena Simcox "have engaged in a pattern of devious and malicious conduct including statements of iniquity, to torment me emotionally in an apparent attempt to drive me out of my marriage."
O'Connell denies the allegation of an affair, as you'll see below.
Simcox also asserts that he was not avoiding service of the order of protection, rather that he's been "residing with a gracious Christian family I know through my church." He then announces that he's currently "apprenticing for a new job in a technical field involving water purification systems."
Along with this info on the new career, Simcox attaches court documents filed by his lawyer John Acer, seeking an injunction against harassment on O'Connell. The docs state that O'Connell visited Acer's home with "harassing/intimidating intent."
Acer, 77, was apparently once a board member of MCDC, and is now in ill health, having recently been treated by chemotherapy for leukemia, according to the court documents. His office said he was not available for a comment.
O'Connell, however, was available for a comment, and he denied the accusations leveled in Acer's petition for an injunction against harassment, as well as those hurled at him by Simcox.
Although O'Connell admitted that he went to Acer's house seeking Simcox's whereabouts, he said he left as soon as Acer ordered him to, and that the entire conversation lasted about 30 seconds.
"At no time did I threaten or harass him," said O'Connell, who is challenging the injunction against harassment, and who has been ordered to steer clear of Acer in the meantime. O'Connell also confirmed that former MCDC leader Carmen Mercer had filed a similar petition against him.
"So now what we have is all three board members from MCDC have presented an injunction against me," he stated. "I'm going to fight it. I hired an attorney to go down and fight it."
He also flatly denied that he and Alena Simcox are more than friends.
"There's absolutely no intimate relationship, past, present or future between Alena Simcox and myself," he told me. "Never happened. In fact, Alena and my wife are good friends. Her children are friends with my children."
Part of Acer's petition alleges that O'Connell was acting as a private investigator. O'Connell says he's never advertised himself as such or claimed to be one. He says he was just trying to help Alena Simcox determine her husband's whereabouts, so that law enforcement could serve Simcox with the protection order.
"This is a very dangerous person," O'Connell said of Chris Simcox.
In his "Simcox Report," the fallen minuteman and former U.S. Senate candidate says he has accepted service of the order of protection.
He also lists several text messages he said are from O'Connell. One of them reads:
"tired? i chased your skinny little ass right out of the state, youre such a little man. chased you away from your little girls, your lover and what was left of any livelyhood. you ran like a girl, right out of your sandals, and now your being chased out of az, leaving everything you owned to me. get a passport and leave the country, thats youre best bet. youre no man.and when its all said and done, you wont even be qualified to teach kids again, this i promise."
O'Connell said the texts were his, but only show part of the picture.
"They're texts between Chris and I," he admitted. "They're certainly not complete. And of course, Chris fails to show you the texts he taunted me with, claiming that he's in Denver. Claiming that he's in Hawaii. Claiming that he's in Mexico."
I put in a call to the office of Alena Simcox's lawyer John Gaertner for a comment, but was told that Alena and Gaertner are still reviewing Simcox's post. If they get back to me with a comment, I'll publish it.
