Steven Brooks, Nevada Assemblyman, Explains Arrest

A Nevada assemblyman charged with threatening to kill the state Assembly speaker said he's actually the victim of the speaker's plot to kill him.

Assemblyman Steven Brooks (D-Las Vegas), charged this week with threatening to kill Assembly Speaker Marilyn Kirkpatrick (D-North Las Vegas) after she did not appoint him chairman of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he believes his life is in danger,

"If (Kirkpatrick) comes to kill me again, I have an armed guard," Brooks told The Review-Journal. "No one is going to touch me again. I'm safe."

Brooks didn't comment on the charge against him.

"I've had a month of hell," he told the newspaper in a shirtless interview this week. "I had the worst month I had in all my life and the new year just started."

The Review-Journal said Brooks wants the speaker to submit hair samples to help prove Brooks' claim that she is a drug addict.

Brooks admitted he had a gun with him when he was arrested during a traffic stop last weekend.

Brooks' attorney denied the assemblyman has mental issues, the Review-Journal reported. Brooks' wife had accused him of mental health problems. Brooks claimed it's Kirkpatrick who needs psychiatric help. Kirkpatrick did not return a Review-Journal call for comment.

Brooks, a former teacher, was first elected in 2010. On his state website he lists his occupation as a management analyst for Las Vegas city government.

Brooks' arrest is the second bizarre case involving a Nevada legislator's personal life in recent years. Last year, former state Sen. Elizabeth Halseth (R-Las Vegas) resigned from her seat and said she had to leave the state in order to find a job. Halseth's resignation came amid a bitter public divorce and child custody battle. Halseth, who was elected in 2010 at the age of 27, accused her husband, Daniel Halseth, of "open and gross lewdness" in October 2011 and claimed he tried to force her to have sex and then took her purse and car keys.

Halseth attempted a comeback in May 2011, when she launched a national write-in campaign for a spot in Maxim's 100 hottest women in the world. Halseth's campaign included photos of herself in a bikini.