Frank Apologizes to Backers in Letter

WASHINGTON —  Rep. Barney Frank, in a written apology mailed to supporters Friday, said that “tremendous internal pressures” had led him to a relationship with a male prostitute.

He promised that his “judgment has improved.”

“What I did was wrong,” the Massachusetts Democrat said in the letter mailed to home-state supporters and campaign volunteers.

“It did not affect my public decisions or any public business. But I regret that some of my past personal actions are troubling to people who placed their confidence in me.”

The letter was not mailed at government expense, a Frank aide said Friday.

It was sent at the end of a week in which the five-term liberal congressman and his top political advisers moved to quell growing speculation that he would resign rather than await a House Ethics Committee inquiry into his relationship with Stephen L. Gobie.

Frank was reelected in 1988 after disclosing the year before that he is homosexual.

Gobie alleges that he operated a prostitution ring out of Frank’s Capitol Hill apartment.

Frank has acknowledged paying Gobie for sex, then hiring him as a personal assistant and driver in an effort to change Gobie’s life. Frank says he fired Gobie when he began to suspect the prostitution operation.