SAN DIEGO - One of the state's most outspoken proponents of "family values" has been married five times, owes thousands of dollars in child support and has been accused of threatening his ex-spouse and girlfriend, according to a published report.

Jim Harnsberger leads the conservative California Republican Assembly in San Diego and helped found the Center for Family Values, a group that condemns people who abuse their spouses and ignore parental responsibilities.

But the 40-year-old Harnsberger failed to pay family support totaling $18,000 between 1988 and 1992 for a child in his third marriage, according to court records cited by the San Diego Union-Tribune Monday.

Harnsberger admits to making mistakes in his personal life but maintains his shortcomings should not overshadow his current message.

"I can only get on my knees and pray to God to forgive, and take from that and try to do the best I can the next day. That's all I can do," Harnsberger told the paper. "I refuse to look for excuses. I accept full responsibility for what I do."

In other court documents, his third wife alleges Harnsberger made threats to both her and her unborn child.

"He has been violent with me before, and I fear for my unborn child and myself," the woman wrote in a 1988 declaration seeking child support.

Another woman, a former girlfriend, obtained a court order requiring Harnsberger to stay away from her.

"(He) said he would cut me up into little pieces and throw me into the ocean and no one would ever know," the woman wrote in 1987.

But Harnsberger told the newspaper: "I don't put much credibility in what ex-wives and people with axes to grind have to say."

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