Lauren Boebert granted restraining order against person who filed ethics complaint alleging sex with staffers

Republican Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert has been granted a restraining order against the man who filed a House Ethics Committee complaint alleging that she had affairs with male and female staffers.

Boebert forcefully denied allegations that she engaged in sexual relationships with three staffers in response to the September 17 complaint, brought by North Carolina-based David Wheeler, co-founder of Democratic-aligned PAC American Muckrakers.

A Weld County judge granted the temporary protection order Thursday, stating that Wheeler was deemed “a credible risk of physical harm or a threat of physical, psychological and emotional harm,” CBS Colorado reports. The judge ordered him to stay at least 100 yards from Boebert.

The Independent has contacted Wheeler and Boebert’s office for comment.

Wheeler’s complaint, first reported by the Colorado Times Recorder, alleges Boebert had relationships with her former district director Clarice Navarro, her chief of staff Raven Finegan and her former chief of staff Jeffrey Small. Some encounters allegedly took place during official hours, in a district office and in hotel rooms paid for by a campaign committee.

The complaint further alleged that a $200,000 payment was arranged for Navarro to “secure her silence” after she threatened to file her own ethics complaint. Navarro has called the claims “entirely false and defamatory,” according to the outlet.

Wheeler told CBS Colorado that one of the staff members’ ex-husbands is one of his sources for the complaint. “Both sources are ready and willing to testify under oath and provide receipts without subpoena. Both statements are in my possession and were provided to the House Committee on Ethics,” he said.

Jace Ratzlaff, Navarro’s ex-husband, denied that he was one of the sources to the outlet and claimed he took a polygraph test to prove it. He described the allegations made by Wheeler as “toxic.”

Boebert is up for reelection in November, and Wheeler filed the complaint 47 days before Election Day. Under House rules, ethics complaints are rejected if they are filed within 60 days of an election.

The congresswoman said that Wheeler “has long recycled sensational claims, including numerous baseless accusations previously fact-checked as false” in a statement earlier this week.

“These untruthful claims are ridiculous, reckless, and politically motivated as they come just a few weeks before ballots go out in my election,” she said. “To be clear, swearing to it does not make it an official complaint. This was a political smear packaged as an ethics filing and published before anyone checked whether it even qualifies under the Committee’s rules.”

Wheeler told Fox31 he would be filing a defamation lawsuit against Boebert. “My attorney will be serving her when I see her in Weld County Court that day. It’s going to be wild,” he told the outlet.

“Ms. Boebert runs her classic denial scheme learned straight out of the swamp and carried out by her minions… She deflects and tries to make the allegations about me,” Wheeler said in a previous statement.

“Boebert truly believes she is not accountable for her actions, nor do the laws apply to her,” he added.

Brendan Rascius contributed to this report