Disgraced former congressman Eric Massa blames his alleged misconduct on his days in the Navy. INSIDE EDITION has the details.
It's the first look inside the home of disgraced former congressman Eric Massa. He lived in a row house in Washington, D.C. with five low-paid young men from his staff.
Massa addressed the sexual misconduct allegations against him to Fox News's Glenn Beck: "They're saying I groped a male staffer. Yeah, I did! Not only did I grope him I tickled him until he couldn't breathe and then four guys jumped on top of me. It was my fiftieth birthday; it was kill the old guy."
The New York Daily News published a photo "inside the Tickle House." Clothes are piled on the floor and the home is littered with garbage. Completing the frat house ambience, there were beer bottles scattered behind the house.
"Are you gay?" Larry King asked him.
"I'm not going to answer that," responded Massa.
Now INSIDE EDITION is learning more about Massa's humiliated wife, Beverly. They've been married for 22 years. Massa was once quoted as saying, "It was an arranged marriage. Our fathers served in the Navy together, and they decided we should meet each other." The couple has two children who lived with Beverly in Corning, New York, while Massa worked in D.C.
"Tickle-gate" is just the latest in a trail of shocking behavior by Massa.
"The behavior toward his subordinates that got Massa into trouble in Congress is part of pattern that dates to his time in the Navy," says Joshua Green.
Green, of the Atlantic Magazine, reported that when Massa was a commander in the Navy, he was known for making unwanted advances.
"He was notorious for giving what they call 'Massa massages' and making unwanted groping attempts toward fellow sailors," Green tells INSIDE EDITION. "He would just come up behind shipmates and begin rubbing their neck and shoulders," says Green.
"I never translated from my time in the Navy to being a congressman," Mass told Glenn Beck.
He also told Beck his rough-house behavior was something he picked up in the Navy.
"I'm going to show you a lot more than tickle fights. That's a crossing the line ceremony in 1983.It looks like an orgy in Caligula," said Massa referring to photos of a hazing tradition that sailors go through when they cross the equator. So just how out of control can things get?
Video INSIDE EDITION obtained from the 1990s shows sailors being whipped. Others were shoved head-first into toilets. Some men performed in drag.
Massa's name has been removed from the entryway of his Congressional office.
