Scandal: Rep. Tim Mahoney

Tim Mahoney outside a polling station on November 2006. Hans Deryk / Reuters. Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-FL) succeeded disgraced Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) in 2006 after promising "a world that is safer, more moral." But now he, too, has found himself embroiled in an unseemly sex scandal.

On October 13, ABC News reported that Mahoney allegedly paid off his former mistress, also a former staffer, after she threatened to sue him for sexual harassment.

The affair between Mahoney, who is married, and Patricia Allen allegedly began during his 2006 campaign. She was subsequently given jobs on his congressional and campaign staffs. But after she found out that she was not his only extramarital dalliance, she attempted to end the relationship, say friends, and was promptly fired. “You work at my pleasure,” Mahoney told her in one particularly caustic phone call in January 2008.

After Allen hired a lawyer – who, incidentally, was also one of Foley’s attorneys – and threatened to sue, she and Mahoney allegedly brokered a secret deal in March in which he paid $61,000 to Allen and $60,000 in legal fees to her lawyer. Sources told the Palm Beach Post the money did not come from Mahoney's campaign account or his congressional office budget. He also promised her a $50,000 a year job for two years at the media firm that handles his campaign advertising. (The media firm has denied any knowledge of this deal and cut all ties with the Mahoney campaign.) A Mahoney spokesman told ABC that Allen resigned of her own accord.

Following ABC News’ report, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) immediately called for an investigation by the House ethics committee.

For his part, Mahoney offered a vague statement in which he accepted “full responsibility” for his actions but refused to admit to either the affair or the payoff. He claimed that he had broken no laws, but asked the House ethics committee to investigate the matter anyway. He also vowed to forge ahead with his re-election campaign.

Two prominent Democrats, U.S. Reps. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), said they had heard rumors of the affair before and urged Mahoney to come clean.