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NASHVILLE — State Sen. Paul Stanley submitted his resignation from the Tennessee General Assembly on Tuesday over an affair with a 22-year-old legislative intern that was revealed by an alleged extortion plot.

“Due to recent events, I have decided to focus my full attention on my family and
resign my Senate seat effective August 10,” Stanley’s resignation letter said.

Stanley, R-Germantown, was appearing on a radio talk show in Memphis and couldn’t immediately be reached to comment further. He said in a text message sent to The Associated Press earlier in the day that he would be “saying something soon.”

Court records show that Stanley, 47, told agents investigating a blackmail case that he had a sexual relationship with intern McKensie Morrison. Her boyfriend, Joel Watts, is charged with trying to extort $10,000 from Stanley in April in return for photos and a video of the affair.

Stanley last week stepped down from his position as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, but signaled he would remain in the legislature.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris and Shelby County GOP Chairman Lang Wiseman had called on Stanley to step aside.

Because Stanley’s resignation comes more than a year before the next general election, a special election will be held to fill the seat representing suburban Memphis.

Meanwhile, two newspapers in Florida shed more light on Morrison’s past.

She was student body president and graduated from Spruce Creek High School in Port Orange, Fla., in 2005. Later that summer she married Randy Mueller, a basketball player at the school, The Orlando Sentinel and the Daytona Beach News Journal reported.

Less than a month after their marriage, Mueller was charged with a hammer attack on an elderly acquaintance.

Mueller and Morrison told police that 75-year-old Stuart Ringdahl drove the couple home after dinner, and while parked in their driveway offered Morrison $50 for sex, and then tried to put his hand up her shorts when she refused.

According to the South Daytona Police report obtained by the papers, Mueller hit Ringdahl on the head with a hammer from the back of the car, fracturing the man’s skull.

Ringdahl denied grabbing Morrison and said Mueller attacked him for no reason. Police arrested Ringdahl, but the case against him was later dismissed.

Mueller is serving a seven-year sentence and filed for divorce from Morrison last month.

Morrison’s phone numbers are redacted from her legislative internship application, and efforts to reach her were unsuccessful Tuesday. Her father said he didn’t want to talk about the situation.

“It’s a family matter, and I’m going to approach it that way,” Will Morrison said. “And I have no further comment.”

Morrison moved to Dickson and enrolled at Austin Peay State University in fall 2006. She was a straight-A student at the school through the middle of her junior year when she applied for the internship with the Tennessee General Assembly.

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