News Staff
Wednesday, February 23, 2022
Sen. Mike Groene of North Platte denied accusations February 18 that he took objectifying photos of a female legislative aide. A couple hours later, he offered to submit his resignation to Gov. Pete Ricketts, and Ricketts accepted. Two days prior, Groene announced his run for the University of Nebraska Board of Regents. On February 18, he said he was dropping out of that race. Groene addressed the accusations after Nebraska Sunrise News reported that Kristina Konecko, who worked for Groene on and off for six years, lodged a complaint that she found”‘objectifying and demeaning” photos of herself on Groene’s computer. The website said the photos appeared to be zoom-close-ups of provocative body parts. Groene told the Nebraska Examiner that he had taken photos of Konecko, but they were not zoomed in on specific body parts and were not sexual in nature. “In today’s world, if you want to take a picture of someone, you should say ‘I’m taking a picture.’ But I didn’t, and I apologized for it,” Groene said. He said legislative IT workers went through his computer and found nothing that would be considered sexually inappropriate. Sen. Dan Hughes of Venango, the chairman of the Legislature’s Executive Board, said the complaint against Groene is being taken very seriously. On February 19, Sen. Megan Hunt of Omaha asked the attorney general, superintendent of Law Enforcement and Nebraska State Capitol Security to investigate Groene.