Conservative Babylon

Claims to fame: Republican; chairman, St. Petersburg, Florida, City Council; husband; father of five; divorcé; apparent multiple-child molester; suicide

Moral apex #1: Sexually molested his two teenage adopted daughters, as well as his family’s barely-legal nanny.

Moral apex #2: Committed suicide just hours after turning in his resignation from the city council.

Anything else? No, that’s about it. As TampaBay.com reported on September 7, 2007:

Just after 1 p.m. Friday, City Council Chairman John Bryan, left, walked into City Hall and handed in his resignation letter.

Less than five hours later, he was slumped over in a golf cart in the garage of his Floral City home, dead from carbon monoxide poisoning. Bryan, 56, had committed suicide.

Bryan’s shocking death came after news spread Friday that authorities were investigating stunning allegations that he had sexually abused three girls, including two of his adopted daughters, ages 12 and 15. Ron Stuart, a spokesman for the Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court, said the third alleged victim was a nanny for Bryan years ago and no longer lives in the area.

For city officials, the allegations were as jarring as they were sickening. Bryan was a hometown business hero, a pillar of the community, a powerful voice on the City Council dais and a close ally of Mayor Rick Baker.

Not so fast there — the allegations didn’t come as a shock to everybody. Per the St. Petersburg Times, September 9, 2007:

Stories about Bryan’s sexual indiscretions had been circulating for nearly two decades.

“I heard the rumors, but you never know if someone’s out to get him or no,” said Bill Dudley, who was in the Northeast Exchange Club with Bryan. “So I never paid much attention to them. You have to take rumors at face value.”

Just as stunning as the rumors, perhaps, is that many of Bryan’s closest associates say they never heard them.

. . .

Those who did hear them include Jerry Knight, St. Petersburg’s one-time fire chief. He said he couldn’t substantiate the rumors.

“I don’t know that anybody knows,” he said Saturday. “That’s the whole issue.”

Daniel Price, 77, who was part of a luncheon group with Bryan, also said he heard the gossip.

“The stories about Bryan flouting around with little girls have been abroad in the land for 15 years,” Price said.

Former St. Petersburg Times reporter Jon Wilson said he also heard the speculation and looked into it while covering the 2001 city election.

Wilson, now retired from the newspaper, said he heard Bryan had an inappropriate relationship with his oldest adopted daughter.

Wilson said he made a few phone calls inquiring about the alleged sexual abuse. About 15 minutes into his work, Bryan called him.

“He said none of it was true,” Wilson recalled.

. . .

Wilson said he performed standard background checks on Bryan and reviewed the file of his divorce from his first wife.

“I thought there was an awful lot of smoke, but we could just never find the fire,” Wilson said Saturday.

. . .

Community activist and political gadfly Lorraine Margeson said she heard the rumors while working on Kathleen Ford’s mayoral campaign in 2000.

“It was widely rumored that there were suspicions that Mr. Bryan had tendencies toward pedophilia,” Margeson said. “I would find it hard to believe that no one else heard these rumors before, because they were widely discussed.”

The rumors seemed to fade after Bryan won the election, Wilson said.

Only recently did they take on more substance.

. . .

George Rahdert, a friend and political supporter … recalled hearing of “some whispers from political enemies” when Bryan first explored getting into politics, but nothing specific and nothing as horrible as sexual abuse.

Robert Skinner … [who] worked as a foreman for Bryan’s home construction business for four years in the early 1980s … said Bryan bragged about sexual liaisons with high-priced prostitutes in Tampa.

Skinner said Bryan also made sexual advances toward young female employees and often pursued sexual relationships with women whose homes he built.

Skinner said Bryan did all this while he was married to his first wife.

“He did have a problem. He should have gotten help,” Skinner said.

“He should have gotten help”? How about: You should have blown the whistle on this sick freak. How about that, Skinner?

Skinner said he “loved him like a father.”

“He also had this little dark side,” he said.

“Little dark side”?

Words fail us. No, wait, they don’t: Skinner, whatever circle of Hell Bryan is in right now, there’s a nice, warm spot right next to him, waiting for you — and for every one of the rest of his enablers who did nothing to protect those young girls.

Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Bryan:

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

— 1 Corinthians 6:19

Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Bryan’s enablers, who should have spoken up, and didn’t:

But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.

— Matthew 5:37