With a campaign message challenging the status quo, Rhode Island Sen. Nicholas Kettle welcomed the attempt to bolster the state GOP’s perennial uphill fight against the Democrats who run the General Assembly. Using a play on words on his last name, the Republican candidate vaulted onto Smith Hill by asking voters: “Steamed up about RI?”
Kettle squeaked into the legislature at age 19 in 2010, winning a primary over incumbent Sen. Leo Blais by 23 votes, and he won re-election to three more terms after taking office in January 2011.
Yet after the unsealing of an indictment Monday, current and former legislative colleagues are surprised by how someone seemingly motivated by a civic impulse now faces charges of video voyeurism and two counts of extortion. The latter charges allege that Kettle extorted a male Senate page — who was 16 or 17 at time — to twice have sex in 2011. Kettle has pleaded not guilty to the charges and declined comment on his case.
The details began to come into view when State Police searched his Coventry home last month and seized electronic devices, as part of the investigation into charges that he took and shared nude pictures of his girlfriend without her permission.
Kettle, 27, faces pressure to resign his state Senate seat. Meanwhile, State Police have declined comment on whether an investigation continues into the student page program at the Statehouse.
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Current and former legislative colleagues say they saw no sign that Kettle might be running afoul of the law.
“We hear there was a raid at his home based upon some allegations – which was a surprise – and then we hear that there were these allegations in the grand jury indictments,” Senate Minority Leader Dennis Algiere (R-Westerly) said Tuesday. “So yes, those were a surprise to me and I’m sure my colleagues would say the same, because there was no evidence of any of this behavior when he was at the Statehouse.”
Former state Rep. Dan Reilly, now a lawyer in Providence, was elected in the same class of lawmakers as Kettle in 2010. Reilly says “never in a million years would I have thought” that Kettle would face charges of extortion and video voyeurism.
Kettle has not been an especially high profile member in the 38-member Senate, where Republicans hold just five seats, and where a more genteel atmosphere prevails than in the 75-member House of Representatives.
In a 2013 interview with the late Dave Barber on Capitol TV, Kettle said he was motivated to run for the Senate because he was “a little agitated on the way government works, and by my slogan, ‘Steamed up about Rhode Island – vote Kettle,’ and I just graduated high school in 2009, so I decided to run for the state Senate.”
Kettle said he faced criticism from his 2010 rival for working as a dishwasher at Cracker Barrel, but won after walking the district twice. He told Barber he was the youngest senator ever elected in Rhode Island, and said that story got attention on CNN.
Kettle said his interest in politics grew after his father took him to the voting booth when he was a child: “I was always, I guess you could say, a ‘political dork’ in his high school.”
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The charges against Kettle have raised attention on the student page program at the Statehouse.
The pages are high school and college-age students who get a small stipend for helping lawmakers with tasks like distributing bills and getting soft drinks during session.
The alleged victim in the extortion case against Kettle, Zach Farnum, ran against Kettle as an independent in 2014. In a newspaper story that year, Farnum characterized Kettle as a friend and said he was running against him because Kettle had said he would serve only two terms.
It remains unclear why the extortion charges — for alleged actions in 2011 — emerged only recently. Investigators won’t comment on how the case began.
Farnum now lives in Tennessee. Asked for comment about the case against Kettle, a colleague at his workplace responded, “Zach Farnum has spent the last seven years coming to terms with what was done to him, and moving on from it. He has since become an accomplished executive in the music industry and is no longer affiliated with Rhode Island politics. He is a full-time resident of the state of Tennessee and is registered to vote in Tennessee. The case is currently in the hands of the Attorney General of Rhode Island, and Mr. Farnum will not comment on the ongoing investigation.”
On Monday, speaking outside Superior Court after Kettle’s arraigment on the extortion counts, State Police Lt. Col. Joseph Philbin declined comment on whether the student page program remains a subject for investigation.
Greg Pare, spokesman for the state Senate, said Farnum did not make any complaints about Kettle during his time as a page in 2011 and 2012.
Pare said Senate President Dominick Ruggerio became aware of the case “just recently.” Pare said no other past or current pages have expressed concern about behavior by lawmakers or legislative staffers.
In a statement, House spokesman Larry Berman said, “Speaker Mattiello makes certain that all of the House pages are treated respectfully and always protected, and there have been no complaints about this very valuable program. Last week, Speaker Mattiello took an additional pro-active measure by designating a former long-time page, now employed by the General Assembly, to serve as the liaison to the House pages. This young woman is working to stay in direct communication with the pages and is available if any concerns ever arise.”
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Kettle’s Facebook profile is filled with photos typical for a Rhode Island lawmaker, showing the lawmaker marching in parades, posing with Mitt Romney, taking in a Red Sox game at Fenway Park and expressing respect for the victims of 9/11.
In the Senate, he proposed eliminating the corporate minimum tax, joined other Republicans in opposing tolls in Gov. Gina Raimondo’s RhodeWorks bridge-repair plan, and proposed exempting military pensions from the state income tax. Kettle told Barber he opposed paying back investors in the state’s disastrous investment in 38 Studios and thought a lawsuit would bring more insight into that controversy.
With a modest profile and a boyish voice, the Coventry Republican continued winning re-election. After close a re-election fight in 2012, he easily outpaced Democratic activist Margaux Morisseau in 2014 and 2016.
Now, the criminal charges against Kettle have united Republicans and Democrats in calling for him to resign. Senate President Ruggerio said the Senate will take a vote to expel Kettle if he doesn’t step down.
That prompted Steve Brown, executive director of the RI ACLU, to write a letter to Ruggerio: “We are alarmed at the apparent haste by which the Senate is considering the possibility of seeking his expulsion from the Senate under Article VI, Section 7 of the state Constitution….As serious as the criminal charges are, so too is the act of expelling a democratically elected legislator from the seat he earned from the voters of his district.
“It is our understanding that the Senate has not used Article VI, Section 7 in modern history to expel a member,” Brown continued. “We therefore believe it is essential that there be clear standards and measures in place before engaging in such an historic effort. To vote to expel a sitting Senator without any formal, carefully-considered procedures establishes a dangerous practice. In the absence of clear due process standards, the Senate’s actions in this case will set a precedent that could be used for less principled purposes in the future.”
Algiere, the GOP leader in the Senate, said calls for Kettle to resign are justified “since these are serious allegations that came out of a grand jury …. and looking at everything that has occurred over the past few months,” from a campaign finance fine in December by the state Board of Elections to the extortion and video voyeurism case, “I just think it would not be in the best interest of the state and his constituents for him to continue to serve.”
