A longtime friend, aide and adviser to California’s governor has been arrested and charged with felony domestic violence in Napa County stemming from an alleged incident in which he tried to suffocate a young child.
According to Napa County Sheriff’s Office documents obtained by POLITICO, Nathan Ballard attempted to suffocate a four-year-old child with a pillow. He was booked on two felony charges of willful cruelty to a child with possible injury and death, and domestic violence in October.
The incident reportedly happened at a Napa resort formerly owned by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The Napa County Assistant District Attorney told POLITICO he will be formally charged Thursday.
"I’ve spent my career in crisis communications fighting on behalf the wrongfully accused, and now for the first time I really know what it feels like to be in their shoes," Ballard told POLITICO in a text conversation.
Ballard, 51, is a prominent California Democratic strategist, founder of San Francisco-based public relations firm The Press Shop and is currently on the board of The Representation Project, a non-profit founded by Gov. Newsom’s wife, First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom. He also is a former San Francisco deputy city attorney, spokesman for the governor when he was mayor and served "as crisis communications point person" for the Golden State Warriors, U.S. Senator John Kerry’s presidential campaign and the Getty family, among others.
Among the detailed allegations, Ballard is said to have charged and pushed an adult victim into a glass door, and placed a pillow on the child victim, laying his weight on it. The adult was allegedly "able to remove the child victim from the room" and then lock herself and another child in a separate room.
He’s accused of doing so while drunk and high on marijuana.
Ballard had just authored a piece on California’s first couple for Marin Magazine, which was released in late October.
Anthony Brass, who represents Ballard, insisted he would be exonerated.
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