From the Associated Press

MOSCOW - In what officials are calling a coincidence, Idaho state Rep. Phil Hart, R-Athol, was asleep in his car at the Latah County rest area where a woman suffered a gunshot wound.

"He is not a suspect," Latah County Sheriff's Office Lt. Brannon Jordan said Wednesday.

Deputies who responded to the 3:30 a.m. Monday shooting, found Hart asleep in his car when they searched the rest area parking lot and awakened him at gunpoint.

"They identified him, cleared him immediately, and sent him on his way," Jordan said.

Kayla M. Sedlacek, 28, of Princeton, called 911 from the rest area's pay phone to report she had been shot once in the abdomen after being attacked in the restroom by a masked assailant. She told investigators she was shot with her own .38 caliber handgun during a struggle with the man.

Jordan said when deputies arrived, Sedlacek had gone to the mobile home of the rest area caretakers. Deputies then cleared the restroom before moving on to the two vehicles in the parking lot.

"They've got their weapons drawn and their rifles out," Jordan said.

One vehicle belonged to Sedlacek, the other to Hart, who deputies awakened by beating on a window. Hart told deputies he had been asleep for about 45 minutes and didn't know anything about the shooting. He did not match the description Sedlacek gave of her alleged assailant, Jordan said.

Hart, who has served in the Idaho House since 2004, has become infamous in Idaho for failing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in state and federal taxes. He also was in the middle of controversy for cutting timber on state-owned land without paying for it.

Deputies didn't locate any suspects at the scene, but the sheriff's office and the Pullman Police Department are investigating a report Sedlacek recently filed about a man who had been stalking her. Sedlacek has told investigators she believes the man who attacked her and the stalker are the same person.

Jordan said he was unsure if Hart gave a reason for being asleep at a U.S. Highway 95 rest area in the middle of the night 80 miles south of Athol, but said he was on his way home. Hart did not return calls to his Hayden office seeking comment.

But Latah County Sheriff Wayne Rausch said Hart called him Wednesday to thank him for the professional way his deputies handled the situation.

Jordan said the investigation into the shooting is ongoing, with several follow-up interviews to conduct and evidence to analyze. He said that up to four detectives from the sheriff's office have been working the case.

Sedlacek is still hospitalized at Gritman Medical Center in Moscow, and is expected to recover.