LEXINGTON, S.C. - Former South Carolina Lt. Gov. Bob Peeler has filed complaints with the State Law Enforcement Division against his paramour's husband and the husband's private investigator.

The complaints are part of the fallout from an affair between Peeler and his next-door neighbor Donna Gulledge, a public employee who works for a Lexington County utility.

Peeler says he felt threatened by her husband, Mike Gulledge, a highly regarded state bureaucrat and former state representative. Gulledge held police commission authority to carry a handgun as part of his duties as director of Local Government Financing at the state Budget and Control Board. In that job, Gulledge handles millions of dollars in grants for water and sewer projects.

Peeler, whose unsuccessful Republican campaign for governor was peppered with "family value" messages, said during an interview with The Associated Press that his divorce is a private matter. He would not discuss details.

Records show that Peeler filed a report last year with the Lexington County sheriff's office claiming Mike Gulledge was stalking him. Peeler then forwarded the report to SLED to investigate. SLED Chief Robert Stewart said he sent the report to the state Budget and Control Board, which subsequently pulled Gulledge's police powers, including authority to carry a handgun.

"My concern was about the ability to carry firearms," Peeler told The Associated Press.

It's an odd turn for the ex-lieutenant governor, who refused to use SLED protective services while in office.

Peeler also said he filed a complaint with SLED about Brian Stillinger, a private investigator paid by Mike Gulledge and Peeler's wife, Bett. Stillinger's reports and photographs filed in the Peeler divorce case show Bob Peeler and Donna Gulledge meeting in parking lots and on the side of a road and leaving a Hilton Head Island hotel after spending the night together.

"I've frankly got concerns about how Mr. Stillinger conducted and reported his facts," Peeler said.

In both complaints, Peeler said he acted properly and out of natural concern. "It has nothing to do with power. It has everything to do with trying to get on with your life," he said.

Peeler says the specifics of the divorce are not news and he won't talk about it. "I'm not in public office. ... It's a private matter," said Peeler, who ran unsuccessfully for the GOP gubernatorial nomination three years ago.

"Divorces," he said, "happen sometimes."

The seeds were sown about a mile from the Lexington County courthouse in a quiet neighborhood of brick houses and tall pines and palmettos.

That's the area Bob and Bett Peeler chose for their home in 1999, moving into the house on the corner lot next to Mike and Donna Gulledge.

The couple struck up a friendship and vacationed in Jamaica together along with other neighbors.

At the time, Peeler was beginning his second term as lieutenant governor and many expected him to run for governor.

In her divorce papers, Bett Peeler alleges the affair began after Donna Gulledge took a paid position working on Peeler's 2002 gubernatorial campaign.

Long a friend of South Carolina's Christian conservatives, Peeler, toward the end of his campaign, announced the "Foundations for Our Future" plan and said he would create the Commission on Marriage and the Family to promote marriage, responsible fatherhood and abstinence education. Though he was a favorite heading into the primary, Gov. Mark Sanford beat him in a runoff.

Divorce records show that by last summer, Bob Peeler and Donna Gulledge were having an affair punctuated by long cell phone calls and captured through the lens of a private investigator's camera. While both acknowledge the affair in the court papers, Peeler insists it had nothing to do with his divorce.

"My relationship with Donna Gulledge had nothing to do with my wife's checking out of the marriage," Peeler says in his divorce filing.

Bett Peeler declined to be interviewed.

In his divorce papers, Bob Peeler accuses his wife of abuse. He says she attacked him with a butcher knife and used a garden hoe to beat up his pickup truck - a signature of his gubernatorial campaign.

In her divorce records, Donna Gulledge says her husband abused his state constable powers and packed pistols.

"Throughout our marriage, he has enjoyed playing cop, pulling citizens over for traffic violations or teenagers that he thought were too rowdy. He enjoyed making people 'assume the position,'" she said.

After the couples separated last fall, Peeler filed an incident report with the sheriff's office, saying Mike Gulledge had stared at him, honked his horn at him and followed him in his state-issued vehicle.

Peeler also filed an affidavit with his divorce papers that said: "Mike Gulledge has been stalking me for a period of several months." Peeler said Gulledge has a collection of firearms and his actions "have caused me to reasonably fear for my safety."

Peeler sent Stewart, whose agency regulates those who hold police powers, a copy of the report. "Because of his actions detailed in the following report, I am filing a formal complaint against the commission of Mike Gulledge. I believe that Mr. Gulledge clearly poses a threat to me," Peeler said in a handwritten note to Stewart.

Stewart called Frank Fusco, executive director of the Budget and Control Board and Gulledge's boss, about Peeler's complaint. "It was transferred to the agency that employed him, just like it would (have been) with any other agency," Stewart said.

Fusco said he told Stewart he wasn't aware anyone in his agency had police powers.

Fusco told SLED to eliminate his agency's police authority. SLED revoked those powers on Oct. 6 and told Gulledge and another man in his office to turn in their constable credentials.

Peeler had no special treatment and his political past or future weren't factors, Stewart said.

"It wouldn't matter if he did hold a political office," Stewart said. "We acted with whatever our normal response would be."

While Gulledge lost his police powers, his divorce papers show he continues to have powerful friends in the Legislature.

In the custody fight for the Gulledges' two children, he has affidavits from eight senators and four representatives saying he's a good father or vouching for his character. Those kind words can be influential in South Carolina, where judges court legislators for support to keep their jobs on the bench.

As for the private investigator complaint, Stewart says that investigation is nearly complete. While Stewart would not confirm that Peeler filed the complaint, he says the former lieutenant governor has no connections to the agents conducting the investigation.

Peeler's complaint shows "he's upset because he got caught in an adulterous relationship by a skilled investigator," said Stillinger's lawyer Doug Truslow. "It has the appearance that he's complaining to SLED to try to chill the private investigator from testifying as to the details of Mr. Peeler's adultery."