Luke Ford

Duke Helfand and Steve Hymon write in the Los Angeles Times:

In November 2005 — four months after he was sworn into office — Villaraigosa was seen one evening by a resident of the Sherman Oaks condominium complex where Salinas lived at the time.

Jean Rouda recalled pulling into the garage about 9 p.m. and seeing Villaraigosa standing alone and buzzing to get into the building. Rouda said she recognized the mayor and was surprised that he had no security guards and that there was no limousine parked nearby. She said she and her niece entered the lobby, where they encountered Villaraigosa, who was wearing a dress shirt and slacks, and was carrying bags of takeout food and a bottle of wine.

The two women and Villaraigosa got into the elevator. He extended his hand to Rouda and introduced himself as Antonio.

David Zahniser writes in the LA Weekly:

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Daily News finally got confirmation of Villaraigosa’s romance with Salinas, a political reporter who had already dated former council President Alex Padilla, among others. Daily News reporter Beth Barrett, with help from an interpreter, brilliantly went to the most obvious source, Villaraigosa’s mother-in-law, who said that the mayor told his wife that questions about his missing wedding ring were “none of her business.”

And yet despite the salacious details, information about the timing of the romance remained frustratingly fuzzy. After all, the woman dating the mayor had, as a reporter, covered Villaraigosa during many of his high-profile endeavors: staking out a position on illegal immigration, showing up on the scene of a gang shooting and, perhaps most notably, attempting to take over the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Salinas made her biggest splash last year when, camera operator in tow, she got a rare peek at the stash of toilet brushes sent to Villaraigosa after he delivered his famous “We clean your toilets” speech to a crowd of immigrants.

In April 2005, I also broke the story that what the Los Angeles City Hall journalists were chattering about but not printing was their widespread belief that then mayor James Hahn’s wife had left him for another woman.

Nobody paid any attention.

Beth Barrett writes July 3, 2007 for the Los Angeles Daily News:

After months of dodging questions about the breakup of his marriage, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa acknowledged Monday that he is involved in a romantic relationship with television newswoman Mirthala Salinas.

…Back in January, the buzz of the mayor’s marital trouble reached a fever pitch, prompting Villaraigosa to give [Jim Newton, then chief of the Times’ city-county bureau] an interview at Getty House, calling the reports "absolutely not true" and adding, "We are not separated."

But when Corina raised the same question about her husband’s wedding ring, she got a very different answer.

Basically, he said it was none of her business, according to Corina’s 88-year-old mother, Manuela Raigosa.

"At first he said he didn’t want to talk about it," she said in Spanish during a telephone interview last week.

"When she approached him again, he said that they could stay in the house and he would move out (of Getty House) … and if they didn’t like it, he would leave."

For the sometimes rocky marriage of the mayor and his wife, who merged their surnames Villar and Raigosa when they married some 20 years ago, it was the beginning of the end.

Daniel Hernandez writes:

The news was "the get" of L.A. for 2007, with reporters at the L.A. Times, the Weekly, the DN, and certainly several others all clamoring to find enough sources who would confirm it. Congrats, as it were, to Beth Barrett. LAObserved has this good summary post. In any event, this is relevant because the mayor, by his own design, is as pop as Paris Hilton. And because there’s an obvious ethical line being crossed by both parties. Otherwise, it’s pretty sad.

I suspect that the mayor has been with Salinas for over a year, including time that she was covering him as a reporter.

I doubt that the mayor has had only one woman in his bed the past two years.

Eric Longabardi writes:

“She loves to have relationships with politicians,” one inside source at NBC tells ERSNews.com exclusively. “She’s a ‘power f***er!” This source also tells ERS News that Mayor Villaraigosa’s latest dalliance, Mirthala Salinas, a political reporter for NBC’s Telemundo is not the Mayor’s last. “He’s now dating one of the members of his LAPD protective detail,” this source revealed.

Assembly Speaker, Fabio Nunez, one of Villaraigosa’s best friends, also had an affair with Salinas from the summer of 2003 until after his swearing in as Assembly Speaker in February 2004. The Speaker’s office confirmed to ERSNews.com that while the Speaker was divorced from his wife Maria (they have since remarried), Nunez and Salinas had a romantic relationship. Salinas attended Nunez’s swearing in as Speaker of the Assembly. Sources also tell ERSNews.com that Salinas would regularly fly to Sacramento to see the Speaker. One insider at Telemundo said that “everybody in the newsroom knew all about it and management did nothing about it.”

Tabloid Baby speculates.