Nadia Davis was a political rising star in 2002 -- president of the Santa Ana School Board, a lawyer, the daughter of a renowned immigration attorney -- when she met Bill Lockyer, the State Attorney General at the time. Nadia says their 30-year age difference didn't seem to matter, "We could talk for hours, just the policy things, and he always had great stories."
They married, settled in Hayward, and had a son. After Bill became State Treasurer, he transferred $1.5 million from his campaign accounts into Nadia's 2010 run for Alameda County Supervisor. She won the primary, then spent a month in rehab.
"I started thinking, you know, 'you're starting to drink a little bit too much.' I admitted myself," says Nadia.
That's where she met Steve Chikhani, a San Jose construction worker dealing with his methamphetamine addiction.
"I believed that he was a genuine person when I first met him and made the stupid mistake of believing that I had to save him," says Nadia.
After rehab, Nadia won the election for supervisor -- the high point of her career. But, on the personal front, she tells Dan that arguments with her husband lead to an affair with Chikhani and to her own addiction to meth.
Dan: "When did you start using?"
Nadia: "Mr. Chikhani is the one who introduced me to smoking meth. And I was an elected official and I was a mother and I was a wife. I made that terrible, bad choice. I'm responsible for making it."
Steve Chikhani refused to be interviewed for this story and emailed me, saying, "I have been completely clean and sober since January. I am staying focused on my sobriety and continuing on the path of rebuilding my life. I have made too much progress to bring up the past."
Lockyer says she first used meth parked in Chikani's car.
Dan: "When the smoke filled your lungs, was it clear to you that 'uh-oh, I'm in trouble, this is addicting' or 'I'm hooked?'"
Nadia: "It wasn't like a thought. That wasn't a thought in my head 'cause I think I would have stopped. It was, it was I enjoy this. I like it and then... "
Dan: "Was it a powerful attraction to it?"
Nadia: "... it was immediate."
Nadia and Bill began living apart. She tells me she tried to break up with Chikhani several times, but that he threatened to expose her secret life and revealed he had a sex tape.
Dan: "But did you consent to him taking the video? Was it something you two wanted to do?"
Nadia: "No, he didn't ask me. Oh, God, no."
Dan: "Did you see the camera?"
Nadia: "Oh, God, no. No, in fact, I would always check his, check his phone a lot to just see if he, if he had, 'cause he had recorded us before."
Bill Lockyer found a copy of the sex video, left in the mailbox at their Hayward home.
"The pain that he must have felt and he had asked me if I was involved with someone and I said, yes," said Nadya.
The pressure on the Lockyers continued to build until February 3rd, 2012. Nadia tells me someone was trying to access their bank accounts online and that when Bill questioned her, she answered it could be Chikhani. Nadia says Bill exploded.
Nadia: "He immediately said, 'Why don't you just go ahead and commit suicide?' having known that I had become suicidal in treatment and was really, really on the edge for almost three months."
Dan: "That's a hard thing to hear from your husband."
Nadia: "It was the most devastating thing that I have ever heard come out of my husband's mouth."
Bill Lockyer declined to be interviewed for this report. Last year, his spokesman told the Mercury News he wouldn't "get into the details, but suffice to say they had a heated argument and they both said hurtful things that they regret."
After the argument, Nadia left with their son, bought a few days' worth of food from Target, and got a room at this Newark hotel. Late that night, Chikhani arrived. Nadia says she questioned him about his plans to expose her drug use and their affair, and that he attacked: "And I remember waking up on the floor and he was bashing my head against the floor. I couldn't move my body and I just like gave up like, like I thought if I fought, you know, I would, I was going to die."
Chikhani's attorney denied he assaulted Lockyer, telling the LA Times last year, "I think she has issues. I think she is struggling. We're watching somebody fall apart in the public eye."
Nadia suffered bruises to her head and neck, and a concussion. Because she had worked for the Alameda County District Attorney, the case went to the State Attorney General's office which declined to charge Chikhani saying, "There was insufficient evidence to support criminal charges."
"I'll never understand it, why they didn't prosecute. I have to accept it to recover," Nadia said.
Alameda County DA Nancy O'Malley told us there were several problems with the case -- Nadia invited Chikhani to the room, Nadia called Chikhani days after the incident, and that she was an unreliable witness because of her drug use.
In the months after that violent confrontation, the drama with Chikhani continued with clips of the sex tape posted on YouTube. We explore that Sunday at 11. We'll also talk about her arrest. And the phone call her sister made that saved Nadia's life.
