from www.radaronline.com – Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack has been caught on camera in a lurid scandal where another woman is apparently licking her breast.
RadarOnline.com has exclusively obtained the photo which shows the powerful politician in a playful, but compromising position with a campaign donor who is now being investigated by the FBI.
Bono, 49, is a Republican lawmaker representing California’s 45th congressional district and sits on the Committee on Energy and Commerce.
She is the widow of Sonny Bono and has been in Congress since 1998.
The woman apparently licking Bono’s breast is Edra Blixseth, a disgraced former billionaire who is at the center of a criminal investigation probing whether she made fraudulent representations about her financial worth to a number of banks.
In a scandal set to rock Capitol Hill, RadarOnline.com has learned the image was taken at an out-of-control event four-years-ago, at Blixseth’s $75 million Porcupine Creek estate in Rancho Mirage, California.
With her head thrown back, Bono’s plunging bra is exposed as Blixseth — who now dates Dallas actor Jack Scalia after splitting from her husband Tim in 2008 — is seen diving into the politician’s cleavage with her tongue out.
“Mary was partying hard,” one source, who was at the event, told RadarOnline.com. “She was blitzed and clearly having a great time.”
Repeated phone calls to Bono for comment were not returned.
Blixseth donated $1,500 to Bono’s 2006 congressional campaign and even served as a finance committee member. She was also once a top Republican Party donor.
However, during that same period, the riches of Blixseth and ex-husband Tim, a wealthy timber tycoon, were starting to unravel.
The pair was sued by jilted investors of the couple’s elite Yellowstone Club World, a millionaires-only private ski and golf resort in Montana, whose members included Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
The Blixseth’s were accused of borrowing $375 million from Credit Suisse Group but took $209 million for themselves as a dividend; Edra reportedly settled two years later for $39.5 million, but only paid $8 million.
One of those filing the lawsuit was Tour-De-France champion Greg LeMonde.
Now Edra is bankrupt, but Montana tax officials are seeking $57 million in back taxes they say the Blixseths owe from the whopping $375 million loan they took out for Yellowstone.
But due to Edra’s bankruptcy, officials want to go after her ex-husband’s assists to cover the debt.
For Bono, the clean-cut politician who married Republican representative from Florida Connie Mack in 2007, the photo scandal is an embarrassing turn of events and reveals just how close she and Blixseth were.
In another photo, Bono is seen grinning as she holds Blixseth’s hand who has her arms wrapped tightly around her.
The images shocked Bono’s 2008 political opponent, Julie Bornstein, who did not leak the images to RadarOnline.com. But Bornstein said Bono’s clearly outrageous behavior came as no surprise.
“Several women in the California Congressional delegation were embarrassed repeatedly by Mary Bono’s behavior and conduct in the Capitol and encouraged me to run because of the embarrassment she brought to the legislature,” she told RadarOnline.com after the photographs were described to her.
“I am not surprised that these pictures exist. She has often spoken about going out with her girlfriends and drinking… she has been known as a strenuous partier.”
Bornstein said she knew Bono was “very close” to Blixseth and that the latter hosted several major fundraisers for her.
“I believe they are close personal friends,” she said.
When asked if she thought Bono was a good representative for the people of her congressional district, the one-time candidate said: “No, I don’t, that’s why I ran against her.”