Mayor Resigns After Sending Video Of Himself Masturbating On His Lunch Break To Female City Attorney

A North Dakota mayor's attempt at romance led to an investigation that ended with him resigning from his position. He had accidentally texted a video of himself masturbating during his lunch break to a female city attorney.

Tom Ross resigned as the Mayor of Minot on Tuesday. His resignation came after the release of a report on an investigation into what he claims was an accidental text to City Attorney Stefanie Stalheim back in January.

Ross had spent his lunch break on the day in question recording a video pleasuring himself. He says the video was meant for his girlfriend, not the city attorney. His attempt to "correct" his mistake was unsuccessful.

"I do take responsibility for this mistake. I tried to immediately correct it and was unable," Ross said in a statement reported by KFYR-TV, "The decision I made falls in line with all my work on behalf of the City of Minot. I put my heart and soul into this community."

Stalheim told investigators that she had spoken to Ross minutes before receiving the unsolicited sext about the suicide of a police officer. Not exactly the sort of discussion that one would expect to be followed up with a masturbation video.

The former mayor said that the not safe for work video was intended for his girlfriend, not the city attorney

Ross did his best to explain to Stalheim that the video of his not safe for work lunch break activities was intended for his girlfriend. Instead of, as he suggested, keeping the incident between the two of them, she reported it.

You can't blame her for that. Mistake or not, you don’t want that kind of video popping up in your text messages. To be perfectly honest, his girlfriend probably didn’t want it either.

How do you send a video of that nature by mistake? Well, according to the former mayor, his girlfriend's name begins with the letter "C" and he had Stalheim's number saved in his phone as "City Attorney."

Whoops. The investigation into the incident found that Ross had "directly caused Stalheim’s inability to work in an environment free from unreasonable sexual harassment and created an offensive work environment."

That's one way to put it. The city can now hold a special election if residents submit a petition within 15 days. If that doesn’t happen, the city council gets to appoint a new mayor.

Whichever way they go, the people of Minot likely want a mayor who isn’t spending his lunch hours playing with himself on camera. Or at the very least, someone who can select the proper intended recipient of his solo acts.