Minot, North Dakota\u2019s mayor has stepped down after reportedly sending an explicit video of himself to the city attorney by mistake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The incident took place in January when City Attorney Stefanie Stalheim received a video via text message from Mayor Tom Ross that showed him masturbating, according to the Minot Daily News<\/em>. The message reportedly came moments after the two had spoken on the phone about the recent suicide of a police officer who had been under investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Roughly two weeks later, Stalheim filed an official complaint, describing Ross’s behavior as sexual harassment. She referred to his actions as \u201creckless,\u201d emphasizing the importance of his position and the level of public trust associated with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe knew the risk he was taking by engaging in such behavior,\u201d the complaint stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ross has said the video was intended for his girlfriend and was sent to Stalheim by accident. He reportedly asked her not to view it and to delete it right away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As reported by PEOPLE<\/em>, Ross expressed regret over the situation and hoped the matter could have been resolved internally. He also said he believes he has maintained a professional track record and denied having ever harassed anyone in the workplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The city\u2019s investigation determined that Ross\u2019s conduct qualified as workplace harassment under its official guidelines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Minot, North Dakota\u2019s mayor has stepped down after reportedly sending an explicit video of himself to the city attorney by mistake. The incident took place in January when City Attorney Stefanie Stalheim received a video via text message from Mayor Tom Ross that showed him masturbating, according to the Minot Daily News. The message reportedly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1720,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.protectingamericanvalues.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1718"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.protectingamericanvalues.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.protectingamericanvalues.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.protectingamericanvalues.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.protectingamericanvalues.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.protectingamericanvalues.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1719,"href":"https:\/\/www.protectingamericanvalues.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1718\/revisions\/1719"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.protectingamericanvalues.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/1720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.protectingamericanvalues.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.protectingamericanvalues.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.protectingamericanvalues.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}