Claims of pills, death plot part of Berman saga

Bitter disputes involving money, booze, pills, porn and death plots all play out in the series of allegations traded between Gilbert Mayor Steve Berman and his estranged wife in a police report released Friday.

Berman’s wife, Michelle, said the three-term mayor once plotted to kill Councilwoman Linda Abbott because he blamed her for his 1993 defeat in a council race.

Read Maricopa County Sheriff's Office investigative report of Gilbert Mayor Steve Berman

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Michelle Berman also told Maricopa County sheriff’s investigators that Berman threatened to kill her and beat her father because they were refusing to cooperate in his efforts to get a loan to pay for his daughter’s college.

Berman countered that his wife has long been addicted to prescription drugs and that “when Michelle is high, she imagines things in her mind that did not happen in reality.”

Berman, who has not been arrested or charged, denied he ever hit his wife. He does admit saying of his father-in-law that “I would like to kick his ass.”

He denied to sheriff’s investigators that he ever plotted to kill Abbott.

The sheriff’s office launched an investigation last week after Michelle Berman contacted a counselor with the Gilbert Police Department saying Berman had threatened to kill her and her father. Gilbert police turned the allegations over to the sheriff’s office to avoid a conflict of interest.

The report of the investigation has been turned over to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, which will determine whether Berman will face charges.

Death plot

Michelle Berman told sheriff’s investigators that the mayor once confessed to her that he’d planned to kill Abbott by running her over with his truck. Steve Berman went so far as scouting Abbott’s jogging patterns, Michelle Berman is quoted as saying in the sheriff’s report.

He backed out at the last minute after waiting for Abbott to pass by, according to Michelle Berman’s statement, which did not give a time frame for the incident. Michelle Berman did say she was not with the mayor at the time, but that he told her about the plot later.

Neither Berman nor Abbott could be reached for comment. Through his political consultant, Berman declined to comment for this story.

In an interview with investigators, Berman denied the accusations, saying Abbott is his “best friend” on the council. Berman also took credit for helping end a recent recall effort against Abbott. He went on to praise her to deputies as “the only member of the Town Council that knows what they’re doing.”

Berman was a council member from 1987 to 1993, when he was defeated in his re-election bid. Berman is serving his third term as mayor.

Abbott served on the council from 1991 to 1995. She was elected again to the council in 2007.

Berman’s lawyer, Melvin McDonald, said in a written statement to deputies that all of the charges leveled by Michelle Berman to investigators are “outrageous and driven by her long-term and verifiable addiction to prescription painkillers.”

McDonald told the Tribune Friday he doesn’t see anything that would lead the county attorney’s office to charge Berman in this case.

“Don’t think there’s a shred of evidence to support these claims,” McDonald said. “There’s not a lot you can do, she’s free to say what she wants to say.”

Prescription addiction

Michelle Berman told deputies that she was once addicted to prescription pain medications, but said she has not used those drugs for three years. To help her shake the addiction, Michelle Berman takes Subutex, which was prescribed by her doctor.

That is consistent with what she told the Tribune Monday. She also said that as part of her treatment, she takes urine tests to screen for other drugs every month as condition to remaining on Subutex.

However, the mayor told sheriff’s deputies that Arizona Department of Public Safety officers had contacted him about 6 months ago regarding accusations that his wife attempted to forge a medical prescription at a pharmacy. Attempts to obtain the DPS report Friday were unsuccessful.

McDonald said in a letter to the sheriff’s office that no charges resulted from that investigation.

Sheriff’s investigators also noted in their report that last week’s interview with Michelle Berman was conducted in a dimly lit room in which she seemed to have “cotton mouth” and kept “nodding her head as if she were falling asleep.”

Though Michelle Berman says she shook her addiction to prescription painkillers, Mayor Berman maintains her continuing substance abuse was the root of their marital discord.

Steve Berman said his wife repeatedly stole his son’s premium beer from a refrigerator in his basement, then replaced it with cheaper brands. The problem got so bad, he said, that he had to put a chain on the refrigerator to keep her out of it.

Michelle Berman told investigators that her husband also kept stockpiles of pornography in his basement, where he has a shooting range, as well as what he described as “enough ammunition to blow up the neighborhood.”

“Michelle said that Steve is frequently on the computer looking at pornography and that he has a collection of pornography in the safe that she is not allowed to see,” the sheriff’s report states.

Money woes

Michelle Berman stated several times in the police report and in an interview with the Tribune that Berman was strapped for cash and could no longer afford to live in his 10,000-square-foot home on his $37,000 annual mayor’s salary. She told deputies that Steve Berman wanted her tax returns in order to obtain a loan for his daughter to attend college.

Once she refused, Steve Berman told deputies he downloaded divorce documents from the Internet.

“Steve stated that if Michelle is going to stand in the way of helping him send his daughter to school, then Steve doesn’t need to have Michelle around anymore,” according to the report.

Steve Berman also told investigators that Michelle Berman wanted his son, Steve Berman Jr., to move out of the house. He said his children couldn’t afford to go to school and live on their own.

The mayor also repeatedly griped to deputies that Michelle Berman’s father, who lives in New Jersey, had lavished her siblings and children from a prior marriage with money. Though Michelle Berman’s father had given her brother $250,000 as a wedding gift, Steve and Michelle Berman got nothing when they wed last November, the mayor told investigators.

“Steve then mentioned that when Michelle’s brother got married, Michelle’s father gave Michelle’s brother $250,000 as a wedding gift, but when Steve and Michelle got married, they didn’t even get a card,” the reports states.

Fight over finances

It was the dispute over Michelle Berman’s refusal to provide her tax returns that ultimately led to the fight that drove her out of the home, she told investigators.

Steve Berman told police he wanted copies of his wife’s tax returns, even though they file separately, to get a loan to pay for his daughter’s tuition.

Michelle Berman said she refused the request because she did not want to take on any more financial difficulty. Mayor Berman later called her on the phone and said “if you don’t give me the tax return, I’m going to kill you and I’m going to pound that bastard (referring to Michelle’s father) into the ground,” the police report quotes Michelle Berman as saying.

Berman denied ever hitting his wife.

But Michelle told MCSO that the mayor punched her in the back the night before he was leaving on a trip for Ireland in May. She said he had also punched a hole in the wall that night. He acknowledged punching the hole in the wall to investigators.

“I put a hole in the wall, I didn’t touch her, but it’s my wall,” he said.

Rocky Relationships

Berman turned 60 on Tuesday and is in the final year of his third term as Gilbert mayor.

Michelle Berman is Steve’s fourth wife, and divorce records going back more than 20 years show a pattern of acrimony and abuse. His third wife, Dawn Berman Schackner, filed for divorce in 1996 after about 10 years of marriage, which produced a daughter, Elizabeth.

Schackner and Berman fought bitterly over money, and Berman sought alimony but didn’t get it. Though their divorce became final in May 1997, they were still arguing in court about money and custody matters more than five years later.

Schackner alleged that Berman failed to pay his share of medical bills for Elizabeth. Berman accused Schackner of keeping Elizabeth from seeing him, and demanded that the child appear at his 2001 swearing in ceremony.

Schackner filed two orders of protection against Berman alleging threats of violence, though the second, in April 2001, was denied and the first, in March 1999, was dismissed weeks later.

Though acrimonious, the court records don’t indicate physical violence during his marriage to Schackner.

But that’s not the case with wife No. 2.

Christine Berman married Steve when she was five months pregnant with the couple’s son, Steve Jr. She also had a daughter, whom Berman adopted when she was about 6 years old. He later had the adoption reversed on the advice of a court psychologist.

But Christine Berman moved out and filed for divorce less than three years after their 1981 marriage.

In court documents, she sought custody of the children, saying she feared for her safety and that of her children due to Berman’s “violent temper and repeated acts of mental and physical abuse and harassment.”

In response to Berman’s resistance to paying alimony, Commissioner Joel Glynn found in 1985 that Christine Berman had been unable to work, in part, because of “injuries sustained by an assault from respondent/husband.”

Berman also balked at paying child support, but offered to let his wife and children share the survival meals he had stockpiled at his home, according to court records.

Accusations of Abuse

Psychologist Phillip Esplin, in a court-ordered family study, noted “long-standing tension in the family, coupled with episodic violence.”

“Both of the youngsters, in my opinion, are at substantial risk for future maladaptation as the result of chronic conflict between their parents,” Esplin wrote.

In August 1995, Berman admitted to slapping his then 13-year-old son in the face during an argument.

According to a 2001 Tribune article, a psychological report during his divorce with Schackner alleged that he also hit one of her daughters and that problems stemming from a “possible mood disorder were obtained from several sources.”

A Gilbert police report on the incident with Berman’s son said he didn’t mean to hurt his son and was undergoing anger management counseling, according to the Tribune story. The court also ordered counseling for father and son.

But Berman was apologetic about hitting his son.

“The fact is, I”m extremely ashamed that I did it. I was sorry I did it when I did it,” he told the Tribune in 2001.

But he also said the police report was wrong.

“I was going through a number of counseling classes with my son because my son was having a bunch of problems,” Berman said in the 2001 article. “But I simply wasn’t having any anger management problems.”

Berman also said the court reports were in error and denied ever harming his second wife, other than one incident where he accidentally ran over her foot.

“She walked up to the car window screaming and raising hell at me. I basically put the car in reverse and backed out and the next thing I know she’s screaming like hell,”? he said in 2001. “It’s not like I got her in my headlights and ran her down.”

Berman’s son, now 26, lives in his father’s Gilbert home, along with 20-year-old daughter Elizabeth.