Seattle Mayor, Ed Murray was in the news recently when he announced that he is suing the Trump administration over his executive order cracking down on ‘sanctuary cities’. Now the Seattle Mayor is in the news for another reason.
Ed Murray has just been accused of alleged sexual assault of teenagers which took place in the 1980’s according to the lawsuit filed. The Mayor denies all allegations.
Seattle Times reports:
A 46-year-old Kent man sued Seattle Mayor Ed Murray on Thursday, claiming Murray “raped and molested him” over several years, beginning in 1986 when the man was a 15-year-old high-school dropout.
The lawsuit in King County Superior Court, filed under the man’s initials, “D.H.,” alleges Murray sexually abused the crack-cocaine addicted teen on numerous occasions for payments of $10 to $20
“I have been dealing with this for over 30 years,” the man, now sober for a year, said in an interview with The Seattle Times. He said he was coming forward as part of a “healing process” after years of “the shame, the embarrassment, the guilt, the humiliation that I put myself through and that he put me through.”
Murray, who is running for re-election this year, vehemently denied the allegations. He abruptly canceled a news conference about police reform scheduled for Thursday afternoon and did not make a public appearance.
Mayor Murray denies the allegations:
A statement from Murray’s personal spokesman Jeff Reading said, “These false accusations are intended to damage a prominent elected official who has been a defender of vulnerable populations for decades. It is not a coincidence that this shakedown effort comes within weeks of the campaign filing deadline. These unsubstantiated assertions, dating back three decades, are categorically false. Mayor Murray has never engaged in an inappropriate relationship with any minor. … Mayor Murray will vigorously fight these allegations in court.”
D.H. is not the only man who has accused Murray of sexual abuse:
D.H. is not the first to accuse Murray, one of the state’s most powerful politicians, of sexual abuse that occurred decades ago. Murray, 61, has known of other allegations for years, and has quietly, but vigorously denied them.
Two men, Jeff Simpson and Lloyd Anderson, said they knew Murray when they were growing up in a Portland center for troubled children, and later as teenagers. They accuse Murray of abusing them in the 1980s when he was in his 20s. Simpson made the claim as a teen in 1984, and talked with a social worker and detective at the time. No charges were filed.
Read the rest of the Seattle Times report on this here.