Yesterday, Rosemary “Stormy” Rothkamm-Hambrice, the ex-wife of former-Sheriff’s deputy and current United States Congressional candidate Clay Higgins, posted a lengthy missive on Facebook, excoriating her ex-husband for failing to pay over $140,000 (including interest) on back child support. Higgins, through his spokesman, had attempted to minimize the situation. “The timing of this is ridiculous,” Higgins’s communications director recently told The Advocate.
Rothkamm-Hambrice vehemently disagrees and in explaining her decision to come forward now, she writes, “Our children have seen all of the hateful posts my former husband has posted on his political page to which I have not responded. Some of his family members have attacked me personally.”
In her Facebook post, Rothkamm-Hambrice also attached an audio recording of a conversation she had with her ex-husband in which Higgins appears to contemplate using campaign funds as a possible solution, before noting that the need for accountability and transparency could create problems.
“Maybe you should just figure out a way to make it right,” she tells him.
“I don’t know how to do that. I have no job I don’t know if… Now, I really don’t know how much we should talk about this on the phone,” Higgins responds. “I’m just learning really about campaign laws and shit, but there’s going to be a lot of money floating around. But there’s every dime is accounted for… I have to keep a very, very….” he says before Ms. Rothkamm-Hambrice interrupts.
“Listen, believe me, I’m not suggesting that you pay me from any campaign whatever,” she says. “But I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with that. Whatever you pay me has to be completely clean, so you have to figure out a way to take care of that.” (emphasis added).
Rothkamm-Hambrice also explains, at length, her ongoing frustrations with the Congressional candidate who has branded himself as “the Cajun John Wayne.” Quoting (emphasis added):
I am saddened and angry that Clay is attempting to blame me for his failure to provide for our children. He deliberately refused to pay child support for many years, knowing full well that I was having to carry the load without his assistance.
I was a young mother with three small children making approximately 30-35K per year. It wasn’t until almost 13 years later before I ever had a salary close to 65k per year.
He was making a 6 figure income throughout our marriage and for several years after we divorced.
He voluntarily underemployed himself, was fired from and/or quit many jobs in the car business both during our marriage and after our divorce.
He has repeatedly strung us along, and I was always chasing him for child support payments. He made no additional incidental payments, however he did carry health insurance policies on the children whenever he was employed which was sporadic.
At no time did I ever disallow him visitation with our children for all of the years that he refused to participate in the financial aspect of raising them. There were also many years that he did not exercise his right to visitation for weeks at a time. Sometimes six weeks would go by and he would not see the kids.
He was always chasing his next big dream, the one that would make him rich and would help me support the kids. That never happened.
Now that his next big dream is here he is claiming he doesn’t owe me anything. He knew going into this election that these and other issues would surface, and I urged him not to run because our children would be exposed to negative press; but he wouldn’t listen. I spent the better part of their childhood trying to protect our children from the truths about their dad and did everything within my power to foster positive relationships with him even though he was absent and did not financially participate in their lives.
Clay created everything about this problem, including the timing. For the sake of our children, he should have done the responsible thing and just admitted publicly that he owed the money, instead of using political spin in an effort to portray himself as a victim. I lived in fear for many years at the hands of this man.
He will never have any control over me again in any way.
CenLamar 