The menacing emails sent by David Petraeus‘ ex-mistress to a Florida socialite promised to make the apparent rival “go away” and boasted of her friends in high places, the Daily News has learned.
The notes Paula Broadwell sent to Jill Kelley were far more sinister than previously reported and seemed like the rantings of someone “clearly unhinged,” a close friend of Kelley told The News Monday.
“This wasn’t just a catfight. Any normal person who got emails like that would have immediately called the police,” said the friend.
She said Kelley read her the emails when she called, panic-stricken and seeking advice in the days before the scandal became a stunning public spectacle and led to Petraeus’ resignation as CIA director.
The friend, who did not want to be identified, said Kelley saw the emails as death threats, specifically one in which Broadwell vowed to “make you go away.”
In other emails, Broadwell, a West Point graduate, touted her military background in a threatening manner and boasted of having “powerful” friends.
“This wasn’t just a case of cyber-bullying,” the friend said. “(Kelley) was scared for her life. She had reason to be. These emails are the real thing. When she read them to me, I literally had the shivers.
“She told me she was afraid for her life. She was scared,” the friend added.
Broadwell, 37, author of the biography, “All In: The Education of General David Petraeus,” sent the emails anonymously. But Kelley contacted a friend who is an FBI agent, and the bureau soon tracked the menacing missives to Broadwell — and then discovered her under-the-desk shenanigans with the Iraq war hero.
“I just wanted to set the record straight that this woman (Broadwell) has serious mental problems. She needs to be behind bars before she hurts someone,” the friend said.
The Petraeus scandal grew with the news Kelley exchanged thousands of pages of flirtatious emails with Gen. John Allen, Petraeus’ successor in Afghanistan, officials said. Now, amid a Pentagon probe of Allen’s conduct, his nomination to be NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe has been put on hold.
Kelley’s friend insisted there was no hanky-panky going on between Kelley, a married mother of three, and Allen, who is also married. “She is fiercely dedicated to her family,” the friend said of Tampa resident Kelley, who is barred from nearby MacDill Air Force Base, where she was an unpaid social liaison.
News also broke Monday that Kelley’s twin sister, Natalie Khawam, now has on her side high-powered lawyer Gloria Allred, who will hold a press conference in Washington Tuesday. Allred sent a press release Monday saying she will “explain the truth about who Natalie Khawam really is.”
As Khawam followed her sister’s lead in lawyering up, Broadwell was wishing she never made the leap from Petraeus’ biographer to bedfellow. Her brother says she is “devastated” and racked by guilt over the affair that ended the 60-year-old retired four-star general’s career and jeopardized his 38-year marriage.
“She’s been devastated by this,” Stephen Kranz told People magazine. “She is filled with guilt and shame for what she’s done.”
The revelation of Broadwell’s regrets came as she bloodied a female news photographer’s forehead Monday in a confrontation outside the biographer’s Charlotte, N.C., home. Broadwell smacked the photographer with the driver’s-side door of her Nissan Pathfinder SUV.
“I had my camera and in all the chaos the door slammed and I got hit in the head with the flash,” said Nell Redmond, a freelancer for The Associated Press. Redmond suffered a small cut and is not pressing charges.
Much like the Kelleys, Broadwell is prepping for her own PR campaign — Reuters reported she hired a well-known communications firm in Washington.
whutchinson@nydailynews.com
