Ventura's staffer criticizes woman asking for help

ST. PAUL (AP) -- Gov. Jesse Ventura is known for tough talk on personal responsibility, but his administration will apologize to a woman who says she was insulted by a staffer assigned to answer e-mail from the public.

Marjorie Castillo wrote to the governor seeking help for her daughter, Lisa, whom she said wasn't getting child support from the father of her child. The pair was never married.

The governor's staffer, David Hunt, began his response with an apology for not replying sooner, but changed his tone halfway through the e-mail.

He wrote: "Judging from your e-mail, I gather that your daughter didn't even bother with the marriage step before getting pregnant."

Later in the message he wrote: "I hope your daughter didn't learn her boyfriend-picking skills from you," and "Please tell me that she hooked up with this bum while rejecting all of the solid values about marriage and family you taught her."

Castillo has been married for 25 years.

The exchange was described in a KARE-TV report Thursday night. Castillo declined a request to provide the e-mail to The Associated Press, and the governor's office did not immediately share the e-mail.

Ventura's spokesman, John Wodele, said Hunt and his supervisor would personally apologize to Castillo, but said it was too early to say whether Hunt would be disciplined.

But, he said, the message was clearly out of line.

Even though Ventura has made similar comments about single parents in the past, Wodele said this was different and that the administration wasn't using a double standard.

An elected official has the right to speak his or her mind, but a staffer must use "measured words," he said Friday. "The employee has to be careful not to take it too far. Clearly, this correspondence went over that line."