BOISE — The former chairman of the Idaho Republican Party was arrested Thursday on suspicion of stalking.

Jonathan Parker, 39, was booked into the Ada County Jail at 10:44 p.m. on suspicion of first-degree stalking, according to the jail’s online roster. The charge is a felony in Idaho and is punishable by up to five years in prison, as well as a $10,000 fine.

Parker, who formerly served as the director of government affairs for the Holland & Hart law firm, was elected chairman of the party in 2017. He resigned in February, according to the Idaho GOP website. In March, his wife, Kelly, filed for divorce, according to the Idaho online courts repository.

According to the criminal complaint prosecutors filed against him Friday, Jonathan Parker went to his wife’s apartment complex multiple times between May 16 and May 30. Prosecutors say he violated a protection order and stalked her by “repeatedly hiding in bushes, masturbating, disguising himself with a wig,” according to the complaint.

During Parker’s arraignment Friday afternoon, Matthew Fouts, an intern at the Ada County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, said Boise police arrested Parker after responding to the apartment complex on reports of a man staring into windows and fondling himself.

When Parker spoke to police, Fouts said, Parker told the officers he was “there to scare a different female in the building. Police could not make contact with the female he said he was there to scare.”

Fouts added he’d been reported for looking into windows at the apartment complex before.

David Leroy, Parker’s defense attorney and Idaho’s former attorney general, called the incident the “product of a grand misunderstanding.”

He said Parker had been invited to a costume party far from the apartment complex. He pointed out Parker had been in Idaho for 14 years, owned his own business, and did not have any criminal history. He said although the charge is currently a felony, he believes it will be dropped to a misdemeanor.

“We will vigorously defend this matter and do intend to have a preliminary hearing on it,” Leroy said.

He added he felt Parker could be trusted to arrive at court on time without bond.

“I assert to you, judge, he is an appropriate candidate for release on recognizance on what is not a well-founded allegation,” he said.

Still, Annie McDevitt, the judge presiding over the hearing Friday afternoon, set Parker’s bond at $80,000. She scheduled another hearing in the case for June 14. She noted Parker already had a civil protection order in place against him as a result of his ongoing divorce from his wife.

“While I understand these are allegations at this time, there’s an active civil protection order already in place that hasn’t proven sufficient, at least by the nature of the allegations presently before the court,” she said.

An Idaho Press phone call seeking comment from Frank Terraferma, executive director of the Idaho Republican Party, was not returned Friday.

In his Feb. 18 resignation letter, Parker wrote, “Serving as your Chairman, while maintaining a full-time job and being a fully engaged father has been harder than I imagined, so much so that I have reluctantly decided that I should no longer continue to serve as Chairman of the Idaho Republican Party so that I can focus on the priorities I place above all others.”

Jennifer Locke of Hayden has been serving as the acting state GOP chairwoman since Parker resigned. The party will elect a new chair at its summer meeting in Boise on June 29.