Sen. Steve Smith calls on Wendy Rogers to withdraw from CD1 race

State Sen. Steve Smith called on rival candidate Wendy Rogers to drop out of the Republican primary for Arizona’s 1st Congressional District and threatened to sue her over radio ads and a website, where her campaign implies that the modeling agency he works for is tied to sex trafficking and engages in inappropriate conduct with minors.

In an ad running on numerous radio stations across CD1, a sprawling district that stretches from the state line with Utah to northern Pima County, Rogers’ campaign calls Smith “a slimy character whose modeling agency specializes in underage girls and advertises on websites linked to sex trafficking.” Rogers repeats and elaborates on those claims in an anti-Smith website her campaign runs, www.slimysteve.com.

The website accuses Smith of being the director at a modeling agency that “recruits children” and advertises on websites that feature Playboy models and includes photos of models from the The Young Agency’s website that show young women wearing bikinis and lingerie.

Furthermore, Rogers’ website says, The Young Agency advertises on modelmayhem.com, a website “full of pornographic material” – most of the models on the website are not nude, though some have nude photos as part of their portfolios. Rogers’ website also claims that modelmayhe.com was linked by law enforcement to several disappearances, rapes and instances of human trafficking, citing a report that originally ran in 2013 on an ABC affiliate in Columbia, Mo.

But at a press conference on Thursday at Phoenix Law Enforcement Association headquarters in downtown Phoenix, Smith said Rogers’ allegations are intentionally dishonest and they convey wildly false claims that The Young Agency, where he’s worked for more than 10 years, is connected to sex trafficking or engaged in improper conduct with underage girls.

Smith said Rogers used the word “underage” on purpose, and said it’s defined as meaning someone is too young to legally engage in an activity, particularly drinking or sex.

“That’s the definition, and she is tying that definition to the company that I work for,” Smith said. “Needless to say, her claims or her innuendo is 100 percent false.”

He noted that Rogers never directly accuses him or The Young Agency of such conduct, only that they are “linked.”

“That’s the most egregious fraud that she’s trying to link the two of them together,” he said.

Smith said regarding the claim that the Young Agency advertises on a website linked to human trafficking, Model Mayhem has more than 1 million users and is “kind of like the Facebook for the [modeling] industry.” He said his understanding is that someone on the website may have committed crimes at some point, but saying he advertises on a website that’s linked to human trafficking is like saying he’s linked to crimes committed by Craigslist users if he sells a lawnmower on the website, or that anyone with a Facebook profile is linked to Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Smith said the things that Rogers is implying about him and his company are reckless.

“To even infer that somebody in this company is at all associated with anything that she’s even remotely trying to infer is so blatantly … it’s almost evil,” Smith said.

Smith emphasized that the Young Agency, which he called a “Christian-based company,” does not book models for nude photo shoots. It does feature women, some of them under 18, wearing bathing suits or other revealing clothing, which he said is for clients, such as swimming pool companies. He said the photo shoots his company’s clients do are for the type of ads featured in Sunday newspapers for regular businesses, and that the Young Agency has clients of all ages – from babies to senior citizens.

“The right thing to do is remove herself from this race and search her soul why she would stoop so low,” he said.

Smith also called Rogers’ claims “potentially tortious” and said he may pursue legal action against her.

Rogers’ campaign stood by its ads, and continued its criticism of Smith, describing him as being in “panic mode.” The campaign did not respond to several follow-up questions from the Arizona Capitol Times.

“If Steve Smith can’t handle scrutiny about his supposed ‘Christian’ website with teenage bikini models and girls in lingerie, and the fact that he personally has a profile on Model Mayhem, a website linked to human trafficking by ABC News and the Huffington Post, then he does not have the stomach for a fight against Tom O’Halleran,” Rogers campaign manager, Spence Rogers, said in a news release.

Several law enforcement figures who support Smith spoke out against Rogers’ allegations. Justin Harris, president of the Arizona Police Association, called her campaign’s claims “a new low in the political forum” and “an act of desperation,” while PLEA President Ken Crane described them as “ludicrous and beyond the pale.”

“We are shocked and astounded at what we view as baseless inferences being leveled by the Wendy Rogers campaign trying to infer that Senator Smith’s personal business is somehow tied to sex trafficking,” Crane said.

Smith and other speakers noted that Rogers has run and lost in every election year since 2010, when she sought a state Senate seat, followed by campaigns for the 9th Congressional District in 2012 and 2014, and for the 1st Congressional District in 2016 and 2018.

“For 10 years … Wendy Rogers has been trying unsuccessfully to get elected to political office. And today, she’s so desperate to win that she’s abandoned truth, decency and the values of the Republican Party,” he said.

Rogers, Smith and political newcomer Tiffany Shedd are vying for the Republican nomination in the district. The winner will face Democratic incumbent Tom O’Halleran, who was first elected to the seat in 2016.