Utah GOP leader in hot water over long ago hot tub party with 15 year old

It reads like a trailer trash pot boiler, but these aren't a packet of slack jawed rural meth freaks...

Kevin Garn is one of the most powerful Republican politicians in Utah, Utah House Majority Leader -- but in the mid-1980's he was a 30 year old business owner who arranged a one-on-one nude hot tub party with a then 15 year old girl.

Flash forward to 2002 and that girl, Cheryl Maher, now president of her Mormon ward's Young Women's Group -- yet addicted to illegal drugs -- threatened to go to the press and, according to Garn, extorted, with the assistance  of her husband, $150,000 from the Republican politician, then running for  U.S. Congress,   in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement.

More money changed hands and the two met several times since 2002 but now Maher, now involved in a reportedly difficult divorce, is going public because, in part, she says she believes other women have been subjected to similar encounters -- a claim denied by Garn.

You don't normally get this kind of dirt from the Salt Lake City Tribune...

Garn admits paying woman