Abbott’s response: ‘I don’t fear Steve Berman’

Gilbert Councilwoman Linda Abbott said Monday it wasn’t until after her plane landed at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport last weekend that she learned Mayor Steve Berman had been accused of devising a plot to kill her.

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Berman’s estranged wife, Michelle, told Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies last week that the mayor planned to run down Abbott with his pickup truck while she was jogging because he blamed her for his loss in a 1993 election.

Abbott said Monday that her mother, whom she had been visiting in North Carolina, called her as soon as she stepped off the plane Saturday to inform her of accusations made in a police report released Friday by the sheriff’s office.

Though she and Steve Berman were political rivals in the early 1990s, Abbott said she’d never heard or had any reason to suspect that the mayor intended to physically harm her.

“I have never received a threat from Steve Berman and I don’t fear Steve Berman,” Abbott said Monday morning.

Abbott said she was an avid runner in the early 1990s, but did not have a set jogging route.

Steve Berman, through his political consultant and attorney, has vehemently denied the claims leveled by his wife. Berman praised Abbott to investigators as “the only member of the Town Council that knows what they’re doing.”

The sheriff’s office launched an investigation of the mayor nearly two weeks ago, after Michelle Berman contacted a counselor with the Gilbert Police Department and said Steve Berman had threatened to kill her and harm her father. Gilbert police turned the allegations over to the sheriff’s office to avoid a conflict of interest.

Sheriff’s investigators have turned the case over to the Maricopa County Attorney’s office to determine if charges should be filed. Steve Berman has not been arrested or charged with any crime. Calls to his office and cell phone seeking comment for this story were not returned Monday.

Since their political battles in the early 1990s, Abbott said she and Steve Berman have put aside their differences and worked well together. In fact, Berman helped raise $5,000 for Abbott’s 2007 campaign.

Outside of politics, Abbott said she and Berman are not personal friends.

“We don’t socialize,” she said.

Meanwhile, at least one political supporter wants to distance himself from the embattled mayor. Mark Connelly, a pastor at the Superstition Springs Community Church in Gilbert, wants a letter of support taken off Berman’s personal Web site, mayorberman.com.

The letter, which Berman’s Web site claims was recently sent to his office, encourages him to “press on” in light of recent attacks in the media. There is no date and it never explains what incident the author is referring to.

While Connelly said he wrote the letter, he also said he wrote it several months ago regarding an unrelated issue as Berman faced a potential recall. Now, Connelly said he’s going to fire off an e-mail demanding Berman take the letter off his Web site.

“I don’t want people to think I’m taking sides on this,” Connelly said, adding that he was unaware the letter was on the front page of Berman’s site until he was contacted by the Tribune.

Despite the allegations released Friday morning in the 31-page sheriff’s report, members of the Town Council don’t see any reason to press the mayor to resign.

Some did take exception to remarks Steve Berman made to investigators that Abbott was the only competent member on the council.

“I don’t agree with him, and I’m not pleased with the statement, but I’m not going to dwell on that either,” said Vice Mayor Joan Krueger, who has been a critic of the mayor in the past. “An apology would be nice.”

Berman, who is in his third term as mayor, faces re-election early next year.

So far, no candidates have announced plans to challenge the mayor. Officials with the town clerk’s office said candidates can’t officially file to run for mayor until September 1. The deadline to file for the March election is December1.