State senator extorted sex from page, indictment says
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A grand jury indictment unsealed Monday accuses a Republican state senator of extorting sex from a page in the Senate’s page program.
The indictment was unsealed as Senate Minority Whip Nicholas Kettle was arraigned on two counts of extortion in Providence Superior Court. Kettle, of Coventry, is accused of extorting a male page for sex multiple times. He pleaded not guilty and was released on $50,000 personal recognizance.
The news prompted Democratic Senate President Dominick Ruggerio to again call for Kettle to resign immediately. He said he was “horrified and disgusted by these allegations.”
If Kettle refuses to step down, the Senate will seek his expulsion, Ruggerio said. He said he also asked the Senate’s chief legal counsel to conduct an immediate review of the page program.
Kettle, who’s 27 years old, was indicted last week, but the details of the extortion counts remained sealed over the weekend. State police separately charged Kettle with video voyeurism on Friday, and his lawyer has said he denies any wrongdoing.
The indictment says Kettle extorted the page into sex on two occasions in 2011. The indictment names the page, but the Associated Press does not identify people who may be victims of sex crimes unless they come forward and agree to have their names published. The page’s LinkedIn profile says he served as a page from February 2011 to May 2012.
In a statement Monday night, a spokeswoman for the page said he’s “spent the last seven years coming to terms with what was done to him” and is “moving on.” She said he’s now an executive in the music industry in Tennessee and is no longer affiliated with Rhode Island politics.
Kettle did not speak to reporters outside court and did not comment on whether he would resign, but his lawyer described the page as a political rival of Kettle’s. State elections records show the page ran against Kettle as an independent in 2014, three years after the extortion is alleged to have occurred.