Former felon knew Senate majority leader was not with his wife at the bar but didn’t know his video could be the end for one of Iowa’s top politicians.
The Des Moines man who captured the explosive video that ended Bill Dix’s Senate career was a former drug felon who said he became more political after losing his right to vote.
Tom Criswell, 57, a regular at the Waveland Tap on Des Moines’ west side, told the Reader’s Watchdog on Monday he didn’t know his video would prompt Dix to resign when he saw the Senate Majority Leader in the bar for the first time.
Criswell said he was playing pool between 7 and 8 p.m. March 1 and thought it was “interesting” that Dix was there, hanging out with a woman who didn’t appear to be his wife.
“It was obvious before they were kissing,” Criswell said. “He was interested in her.”
Asked how he knew the woman wasn’t Dix’s wife, Criswell said he had a hunch at the time. Their interaction was “not typical behavior of two people who have been married for a while,” he said.
He said he knew Dix from media coverage and also knew that he was married. But the woman he was touching and flirting with that night seemed younger.
“He was on the hunt,” Criswell said.
Criswell said he began taking photos of the two while playing pool and then shot some video of them from behind.
Criswell said a friend connected him with Iowa Starting Line, a liberal-leaning political blog, with which he shared the video.
“I just got some information to see if there was any interest,” he said. “I didn’t know it would blow up like this. I didn’t see anything that would be a death knell” for Dix.
The Starting Line held onto the images for at least a week before publishing them, Criswell said. “I didn’t know if anything would come of it.”
Criswell describes himself as an “independent who leans progressive.”
He said he started to pay more attention to politics and political figures after he served 4½ years in prison for possession with intent to deliver for a mix of drugs he was dealing.
“It started with seven different counts,” he said. “It was a pharmacy.”
Criswell said he didn’t think about the calls for Dix to resign last year after a Polk County jury awarded $2.2 million in damages to a former GOP caucus staff member for a pattern of sexual harassment .
Several current and former GOP caucus staffers corroborated former Senate GOP Communications Director Kirsten Anderson’s claims of an environment rife with sexual jokes, sexually tinged remarks about women’s bodies, sexual gossip and vulgar comments.
Dix, a Shell Rock Republican, maintained after the verdict that Anderson was terminated in May 2013 for her poor work and no other reason.
He said at the time the environment before he became caucus leader in November 2012 was lacking in professionalism and appropriate behavior, and any issues raised in the trial would be addressed.
