'Unpaid blackmail' behind disclosure of Garn's nude hot tubbing?

SALT LAKE CITY — Kevin Garn's son is offering an alternate explanation to why Cheryl Maher went public about her nude hot-tubbing with him as a 15-year-old: unpaid blackmail demands.

Garn's son, Jake, on Monday sent the Deseret News a copy of a Facebook message that Maher had sent to him just before Christmas 2008. In the message, she asked for his help to get money from his father, "so things do not get ugly."

"This is no longer about forgiveness, Jake. This is about justice," she wrote. "Nothing will stop me from getting exactly what this matter needs, and that is justice and compensation."

Maher on Tuesday confirmed to the Deseret News that she wrote the message but said it was during a time when she was desperate for money and was on psychiatric drugs "that I should not have been on." She said her decision to go public this month "absolutely did not" come because of unpaid "blackmail."

Jake Garn sent the e-mail to the Deseret News a day after Maher and her ex-husband, Dr. Eric Knight, waged a public he-said, she-said battle of words over what may have been Maher's reasoning for disclosing what happened with Kevin Garn about 25 years ago. Those disclosures led Garn to resign from the Legislature where he was the House majority leader.

Maher said she did it to overcome turmoil in her life — from drugs to mental health issues — created by keeping it secret for so long. Knight said he believes she did it as part of an effort to make him, Garn and the LDS Church scapegoats for bad decisions she has made.

Now, Jake Garn says her 2008 Facebook message to him shows that unpaid blackmail may be a reason, too. "Her words about her motives in your most recent article don't fit with reality," he said.

About Maher's 2008 Facebook message, the younger Garn wrote to the Deseret News, "I definitely considered it to be blackmail, so I ignored it and hoped it was written in a moment of indiscretion."

He added, "Her threats about the consequences of inaction have now become a reality, so I'm fairly certain she meant what she said. She also sent an e-mail to my mom a couple months ago referencing this message to me, so I'm certain it was Cheryl that wrote it."

Maher said Tuesday that later she apologized for the first message.