Facing threat of expulsion, Kettle quits

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Once the youngest senator in Rhode Island Senate history, Nicholas D. Kettle resigned Thursday in the face of extortion charges and an unprecedented effort by fellow senators to expel him.

The 27-year-old Coventry Republican tendered his resignation, effective immediately, in a letter delivered to Senate leaders that professed his innocence and slammed the bipartisan effort launched a day earlier to banish him from the legislature. 

By 3 p.m., Kettle's personal belongings had been wheeled from his State House office, his name scraped from the door and his biography erased from the General Assembly website.

"After taking several days to speak with my legal counsel and family members, I have determined that it is in my best interest to resign and concentrate on the unfounded allegations against me," Kettle wrote in the statement. "I am grateful for the many individuals who have continued to support me during these difficult times as it is clear that they understand that I am innocent until proven guilty.

"However, I am extremely disappointed in Senate Leadership on both sides of the aisle because [Senate Minority Leader Dennis] Algiere and [Senate President Dominick] Ruggerio do not appear to understand the importance of due process as a cornerstone of our legal system."

Kettle is accused of twice extorting sex from a teenager who worked at the State House as a page and separately sharing surreptitiously taken nude images of his now ex-girlfriend with a friend in New Hampshire.

After a month-long investigation, State Police arrested Kettle last Friday at his job in Richmond. He was held over the weekend and arraigned Monday in Superior Court, where he pleaded not guilty and was released on personal recognizance.

"He wants to concentrate on exonerating his name and this was just something that was getting in the way," Priscilla DiMaio, one of the attorneys representing Kettle, told reporters Thursday about why he couldn't stay in the General Assembly.

She said the decision to step down was not precipitated by Wednesday's expulsion resolution which, if it had passed, would have made Kettle the first state lawmaker to be expelled since the enactment of the Rhode Island Constitution in 1843. A Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the expulsion resolution was scheduled for Tuesday.

"The extremely serious allegations against Mr. Kettle, including sexual exploitation of a minor in the Senate page program, are unlike any I have witnessed during my time in the Senate," Ruggerio said in a statement. "I am grateful that Mr. Kettle has chosen a path that avoids requiring his colleagues to consider expulsion."

Some lawmakers, particularly Republicans, shared concerns raised by the American Civil Liberties Union that the Senate's move to expel Kettle was made hastily, without a clear process in place and set a potentially dangerous precedent.

Others thought his departure was unavoidable.

"While I have great respect for due process, the severity of the grand jury indictments involving a minor in the Senate page program are far too serious," Algiere said in a statement. "We have an obligation to provide a safe work environment for all employees."

Had the resolution to expel Kettle come to a vote, Republican Sen. Thomas J. Paolino, 26, of Lincoln, told The Journal that, based on the allegations, he would have voted for it.

Sen. Mark Gee, R-East Greenwich, said he was disappointed the situation "dragged on," that it was right for Kettle to resign, but that he couldn't say whether he would have voted for expulsion without "all the facts."

John Marion, executive director of the citizens' advocacy group Common Cause Rhode Island, tweeted Thursday that Senate leaders "need to come up with a clear process for how to handle punishment and possible expulsion going forward."

Kettle's departure comes after the Feb. 5 deadline to hold a special election, so District 21, which includes parts of Coventry, Scituate, Foster and West Greenwich, will go without a senator until January 2019.

It leaves the normally 38-member Senate with 36 members — after the earlier resignation of another senator — and only four Republicans.

Kettle's political trajectory was unusual even before he became the target of investigators.

He was a 19-year-old Rhode Island College sophomore who worked part-time washing dishes at Cracker Barrel when he defeated incumbent Leo Blais by 23 votes in the 2010 Republican primary. After winning a three-way general election, he took office in January at age 20.

The son of a prison warden and construction company clerk, Kettle told The Journal back in 2011 that he was inspired to run out of outrage at Obamacare and said his political philosophy was influenced by the Tea Party movement and Texas Congressman Ron Paul. 

He drew criticism early in his first year at the State House when his e-mail to a Tea Party group referred to hearings on homelessness as a "dog-and-pony" show. He apologized.

Along with advocating for limited government, Kettle's supported, among other things, hunters rights and allowing farmers to sell raw milk and raw milk cheese.

A Senate raw milk study commission he proposed and got approved last year has never been formed.