ST. LOUIS, Aug. 11 (UPI) -- Missouri Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder said Thursday he frequently visited a strip club years ago but denied a former dancer's claims he was one of her customers.
"Like most people, I am not proud of every place I have been. But this woman's bizarre story is not true," Kinder, a Republican expected to run for governor, said in a statement, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
The statement came after the (St. Louis) Riverfront Times quoted Tammy Chapman, a 39-year-old bartender, as saying Kinder was a regular customer when she worked as a stripper at Diamond Cabaret in Sauget, Ill., in the mid-1990s. Kinder was a state senator at the time.
Chapman, who was a Penthouse magazine "pet of the month" in 1992, said Kinder received lap dances in the mid-1990s.
The Kansas City (Mo.) Star said she told KMOX-St. Louis, in an interview: "He became aggressive with me. I would do private dances for him, and he would grab my shoulders and … try to press me onto him very, very forcefully."
She said she refused to see him after that.
In the statement, Kinder said his potential Democratic opponent, Gov. Jay Nixon, "may want to make up false stories about the past."
"The Democrats have tried to use these tactics against me in the past and they have failed," Kinder said.
His statement came after the state's Democratic Party called the allegations "disturbing."
