WASHINGTON, 12 (UPI)

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., says he urged Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, to withdraw a guilty plea in a restroom sex sting as a matter of “fairness.”

Specter, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told The Philadelphia Inquirer Craig’s June arrest at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport reminded him of a case Specter prosecuted in Philadelphia in the 1960s, in which magistrates took unfair advantage of men charged with soliciting gay sex.

“It was the Family Theater … where the police used to ensnare people, homosexuals, on morals charges, and they then were shaken down by the magistrates,” Specter told the newspaper.

Craig, 62, pleaded guilty in August to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge, for allegedly making sexual advances to an undercover police officer in an airport men’s room. Craig announced Sept. 1 he intended to resign Sept. 30.

Attorneys for Craig filed papers in Minnesota Monday asking that his guilty plea be withdrawn. Craig said in the filing it would be “manifestly unjust not to allow his guilty plea, entered in a state of fear, to be withdrawn.”

Specter has not accused Minnesota authorities of misconduct, but he said he believed the case against Craig was weak.

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