Anchorage Hath No Fury Like a News Anchor Scorned

 Mayor Resigns After Sexting Scandal Surfaces. His Digital Paramour Has Not.

So, the fact that Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz resigned yesterday, after admitting to an "inappropriate, consensual messaging relationship" with a local TV anchor is salacious enough and worthy of national attention, including The New York Times. 

But there's a lot more to unpack here, and much of it comes from baggage belonging to the anchor, Maria Athens (left), who's seen nightly on the ABC and Fox Alaska affiliates, known as Your Alaska Link.

Here are a few, for lack of a better term,  highlights:

--Athens told the Anchorage Daily News the texting from Berkowitz, a married father of two, began in 2016. "When he slided into my texts, with his little witty slogans and pictures," she said. 

--Their relationship badly went off the rails. Why isn't clear. But Athens clearly had a few bones to pick, which she left in a venemous voice mail first obtained by the Alaska Landmine website and later released by the mayor's office, in which she threatened to kill him and his wife, called him a "Jewish piece of living fucking shit" and made unsubstantiated claims he had sent nude photos to an underaged girl's website. That's something the purportedly not-underage girl denied to the Anchorage Press, by the way.

--For extra emphasis, Athens added in the voice mail, "I can believe I'm such a fucking good person who thought I loved you." Yeah, about that...

--Athens also went wild on social media, posting nude photos she said were of Berkowitz and filming a video inside her TV station, which she posted on her Facebook page claiming she'd have a story that would essentially accuse Berkowitz of being a pedophile. Station management demanded she remove "any mention or affiliation with our stations." But that's as far as they went, incredibly enough And then....

--Athens was arrested last Friday for getting into a fight with station general manager Scott Centers, who also doubled as a boyfriend, or, as Athens claimed in court, her fiance. As the Anchorage Daily News reported:

A charging document in the case says Athens and ... Centers fought in the car "about work," with Athens punching Centers and hitting him with her cell phone. Athens said she grabbed Centers' arm because he was driving erratically during the argument but denies attacking Centers.

Later, Athens allegedly hit Centers again inside the TV station. When police ... arrested her, she hit a cop on his vest and tried to kick the doors of the police cruiser, causing police to put her in full restraints, the charging document said.

Athens denied hitting the officer or being in full restraints. Because that would change the whole narrative, right?

A reasonable assumption would be that Athens would have been canned from the station faster than a Kodiak bear would have swallowed a salmon for lunch. But the ADN reports her status isn't clear and nobody at the station is talking. Which is something that is very welcome right about now.