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Maria Belen Chapur, Mark Sanford | 06/29/2009 9:45 am

Mark Sanford's Mistress, Maria Belen Chapur, Says Little About Affair; Wife Called a Hero

Chapur says she has idea who leaked affair-related e-mail messages to the press; friends say Sanford’s wife, credited with much of his political success, is no victim.
By The Staff at wowOwow.com
Image: Wikipedia

Maria Belen Chapur admitted over the weekend that she had a steamy affair with South Carolina governor and formerly rising GOP star Mark Sanford, but she’s saying little else on the scandal.

The 41-year-old Argentine woman also said she has a "firm suspicion" of who broke into her Hotmail account, where e-mail messages were housed containing details about her affair, reports The New York Times. But she doesn’t think the hacker is an ex-boyfriend. Whoever the culprit is, he or she broke into her e-mail around November 24, and, the following month, sent the e-mail messages to her ex and The State newspaper in Columbia, SC.

"I won’t speak about my private life as it just belongs to me,” Chapur said in a statement. "It has already been made too public during these last days, bringing to me even more pain."

Meanwhile, wife Jenny Sanford — the woman who is credited for many of her husband’s successes — is being heralded a hero by those who know her. She’s no victim. She kicked Sanford out of the family home, and says her No. 1 priority is her family, not her husband’s political career. She recently said she knew her husband has been cheating on her since January when she found a love letter, and that he had the gall to ask her if it was OK for him to visit his mistress. The Washington Post says Mrs. Sanford, 46, "seems to have drawn a new path for the aggrieved spouse of a philandering politician, an episode that has become something of a ritual in American politics."

Cyndi Mosteller, a longtime friend and prominent Republican operative in South Carolina, told the Post:

Jenny is the hero in this story. She’s the hero to her children, and I think she’s the hero to this state. In the midst of this tragedy, she is standing strong to who she is and what she believes in … I think Jenny has not had these types of ambitions, but I think every woman in South Carolina would vote for Jenny Sanford for governor right now.

Jenny Sanford certainly isn’t the first wife of a prominent politician to have her family turned upside down because of a sex scandal. Hillary Clinton endured Bill’s Oval Office antics; Dina Matos McGreevey had to deal with her New Jersey governor husband Jim McGreevey’s public outing as a gay man; Silda Spitzer was mortified to find out her husband, then-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, was spending time with prostitutes; and Elizabeth Edwards not only had to deal with her husband’s extramarital activities, but the possibility that he fathered a child with another woman, on top of it all.

What do you think Jenny Sanford should do? Should she forgive her husband or kick him to the curb for good?

80 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

Debbie Learman

I think it took her this long to get her financial affairs in order!  before he can "hide and disguise" his bank accounts, etc etc….how smart of her!  This way…he can go to his marriage-breaker-bytch-lover-mistress w/not much except for his penis!  what a bastard he is!

…and yes…if he was my husband I’d change him from a rooster to a hen!  *and I know how! *when he’s asleep, just lift it up, and make a nice cut under "it"…and after much pain…call 911…he’s bleeding..O’dear…I wonder why….it’ll never rise to any occassion again!

By Debbie Learman on 07/03/2009 5:23 pm
Kagan K
I feel for Sanford, his wife, children and mistress.  Hasn’t anyone out there lost their mind having fallen in love with someone outside their marriage or been in love with someone else who is married?  Hasn’t anyone felt the retching pain of loving someone they can’t be with to the point of doing exactly what he is doing?  Let’s have some compassion for all whom are involved in this.  But yes, he should resign.  This time is, indeed, the age of transparency and it isn’t always pretty.
By Kagan K on 07/03/2009 6:42 pm
albert miller
Very amusing.
By albert miller on 07/25/2009 1:11 am