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CHICAGO SUN-TIMES Scott Lee Cohen -- a pawnbroker who shocked state Democratic leaders Tuesday night by winning the party's nomination for lieutenant governor -- was arrested about four-and-a-half years ago and accused of holding a knife to a former live-in girlfriend's neck, newly obtained court records show. The misdemeanor charge against Cohen was dropped weeks later when the woman -- who had just been found guilty of prostitution -- failed to show up to testify, according to those records. This isn't the only piece of information Republicans might try to use against the Democratic gubernatorial ticket, the other half of which was being sorted out as Gov. Quinn and Dan Hynes ran neck-and-neck with ballots still to be counted. Cohen's Oct. 14, 2005, arrest came five months after his wife filed for divorce and convinced a judge to give her a temporary order of protection, records show. A status hearing in the divorce case took place Wednesday, hours after Cohen's election-night triumph. Cohen -- who records show also had federal tax troubles that he says he has settled -- denied in a written statement that he ever hurt the ex-girlfriend or his family. Cohen disclosed his domestic violence arrest when he announced his candidacy, but the details about the knife and prostitution case didn't surface in the campaign, as Cohen was considered a longshot. "It was a difficult time in my life. I was going through a divorce, and I fell in with the wrong crowd," Cohen said. "I was in a tumultuous relationship with the woman I was dating. We had a fight, but I never touched her." Still, Cohen's problems, "sound at least as bad as Jack Ryan's," a Democratic strategist said. After winning the 2004 GOP primary for U.S. Senate, Ryan stepped down from the ticket after sexually charged revelations from a divorce case. Cohen, now 44, placed "a knife up to complainant's neck causing minor scars," according to the police report from his arrest. There also were "minor scars on her hand from her trying to defend herself against the arrestee swinging the knife at her." Cohen also allegedly "pushed complainant's head against [a] wall, causing a bump on the back of her head." Paramedics treated the now 29-year-old woman at Cohen's Near North Side home. Police photographed her injuries, which they described as "mild abrasions from knife wound." "She never came to court and the charges were dismissed," Cohen said. "I realized this relationship was not healthy for me. I ended it, and we parted amicably." The day before the ex-girlfriend failed to come to court for Cohen's case, she was sentenced to court supervision in her misdemeanor prostitution case, which Cohen campaign strategist Phil Molfese said did not involve Cohen. The woman could not be reached for comment. Molfese also said that Cohen sees his children regularly and has paid off any tax debt he'd incurred through the sale of a downtown building. "He's been honest and up front from the beginning," Molfese said of Cohen's arrest. "It's just that nobody cared." State Sen. Terry Link (D-Vernon Hills), one of the unsuccessful candidates for lieutenant governor, and representatives of the other candidates met a month before the election with representatives of the Quinn and Hynes campaigns to warn them about Cohen, Link said. "We tried to warn the governor beforehand and they didn't want to listen to it," Link said. "He and Dan should have issued a joint statement denouncing this guy." Asked Wednesday night on WTTW's "Chicago Tonight" if Cohen should step down from the ticket, Quinn replied, "I think he should come forward and tell us everything about his background. But anything dealing with that has to go through the [Democratic] state central committee. I want to see what Mr. Cohen has to say. I don't give opinions until I hear all the facts from the person involved."
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