Georgia Democrats hoping to unseat Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA-14) seem to have run into trouble. The Atlanta Progressive News reported Wednesday that Marcus Flowers, Democratic candidate for the 14th District seat, once dropped his ex-wife at a homeless shelter.
APN reported the story Wednesday after confirming reports of the incident that had originally been released in the New Republic Magazine. That original report indicated that Flowers had dropped his ex-wife, Svetlana Chudinova, at the homeless shelter without any of her belongings after telling her that he was taking her to Walmart to go shopping. The New Republic report went on to say that “In July 2016, Flowers was living in Oklahoma with Chudinova and their two-year-old daughter. Flowers and his ex-wife had a tumultuous relationship marked by mutual recrimination and accusations of emotional abuse and infidelity. According to claims Chudinova later made in court filings, Flowers had tried to evict her several times.”
That original report went on to say “On July 5, Flowers told Chudinova to accompany him to Walmart. Chudinova, who was not a U.S. citizen and had struggled to adjust to life in this country, took nothing with her. Instead of Walmart, they arrived at a homeless shelter, where Flowers told her to get out of the car. She refused; Flowers called the police. Eventually, Chudinova left the car and went into the shelter, the City Rescue Mission.”
Wednesday’s report by Atlanta Progressive News reported that Flowers met Chudinova, who is Russian, in Afghanistan while he was a military contractor. Flowers has refused to say more about his military contract work “except that he did not work for Blackwater.”
The report goes on to say “After she became pregnant, he agreed they would move to the United States, that they would get married, and that he would assist her with obtaining a green card.”
“After living in Georgia for some time, Flowers met a new girlfriend and presented Chudinova (then “Svetlana Flowers”) with a divorce agreement, in which he agreed to get her a green card (already promised but promised again), that he would repay a loan to her mother (that he already owed), and that they would all move to Oklahoma together. After living in Oklahoma for some time, he decided he did not want her living with him and his girlfriend anymore,” Atlanta Progressive News reported.
It goes on to state that Flowers admitted to some of these actions in his response to a recent suit filed by Chudinova in Oklahoma. APN reported: “I learned that they did have a program that would help her get counseling because I felt she had a personality disorder that was previously not disclosed and help her get a place of her own to stay if I would help offset the cost,” he wrote in the court document, attaching no evidence to support his opinion the report says.
“The conversations that I had with the City Rescue Mission are documented and began a month before she was removed from the home,” he wrote, according to APN reports. “I in fact informed Ms. Chudinova of this a couple weeks prior and gave her notice of eviction. She refused to vacate the premise, so I in fact did tell Ms. Chudinova on July 05th 2016 that we were going to Wal-Mart and instead took her to the rescue Mission. She did not as stated in her petition call the police, I in fact called the police to have her removed from the vehicle, I will produce the police report. I never forcibly removed Ms. Chudinova from any place.”
APN raises a number of questions in Wednesday’s article including: “the first of which is, who on Earth drops their child’s mother off at a homeless shelter? Another question is whether Mr. Flowers complied with state law governing evictions, or whether he engaged in “self help” akin to a residential lessor placing a tenant’s belongings on the lawn.”
This is not the first media report to raise questions about Flowers. In July 2021, The New Republic ran a story titled. “The Murky Past of Congressional Candidate Marcus Flowers: The war veteran turned politician, who hopes to challenge Marjorie Taylor Greene, has revealed little about his life. We tried to find out why.”
