A second ex-staffer is now accusing Conyers of making unwanted sexual advances as well as inappropriately touching her during the late 90s and early 2000s.
Here’s the lowdown from Detroit News:
A former staffer of U.S. Rep. John Conyers said the veteran lawmaker made unwanted sexual advances toward her, including inappropriate touching, adding to allegations by other unnamed former employees that have prompted a congressional investigation.
Deanna Maher, who worked for him from 1997 to 2005, told The Detroit News that the Detroit Democrat made unwanted advances toward her three times.
The first instance of harassment happened, Maher said, shortly after the congressman hired her in September 1997 during an event with the Congressional Black Caucus.
“I didn’t have a room, and he had me put in his hotel suite,” said Maher, 77, adding that she rejected his offer to share his room at the Grand Hyatt in Washington and have sex.
The other incidents with the now 88-year-old Conyers involved unwanted touching in a car in 1998 and another unwanted touching of her legs under her dress in 1999, she said.
Why Maher keep working for Conyers despite the harassment:
Conyers’ attorney Arnold Reed questioned why Maher would continue to work for Conyers for so many years after the alleged incidents. He also said Maher’s allegations are uncorroborated and that his client denies wrongdoing.
“At the end of the day, he’s confident that he will be exonerated because he maintains that he has not done anything wrong,” Reed said.
Maher said her need for employment explains why she stayed on the job.
“I needed to earn a living, and I was 57. How many people are going to hire you at that age?” she said.
Conyers’ status as a leading Democrat deterred her from going public at the time, Maher said, adding she doesn’t have anything to lose now.
“I didn’t report the harassment because it was clear nobody wanted to take it seriously,” she said. “John Conyers is a powerful man in Washington, and nobody wanted to cross him.”
Maher did tell a reporter about the harassment at the time:
Former Detroit Free Press reporter Joel Thurtell said Monday that Maher told him about the alleged abuse at the time, but she didn’t want to go on the record.
“She told me about the sexual harassment claims, but at the time she didn’t feel confident she wouldn’t be hung out to dry and retaliated against,” said Thurtell, who left the Free Press in 2007 and runs a blog, “Joel on the Road.”
“So there was no way I could report it. I spoke with her last week, and she said she just didn’t feel comfortable at the time going on the record with the allegations.”
Maher also discussed the sexual harassment incidents with a Detroit News reporter in 2013 but didn’t want to go on the record.
More on the allegations:
In the second alleged incident in spring 1998, Maher said she was in the passenger seat while Conyers was driving to Detroit Metropolitan Airport and that he touched her.
“He was trying to feel me up with his right hand,” she said. “I kept pushing his hand away. Then he put his hand on my neck and started trying to tickle me. We were on I-75, and he was driving erratically. I was saved by the bell because we got pulled over by the police for the way he was driving.”
In 1999, at a meeting in Highland Park with ministers, Maher said Conyers “put his hand up my dress and whispered in my ear, ‘I didn’t know you had such great legs.’ ”
She said she reported to the House Ethics Committee and U.S. Attorney’s Office in 2001 an assault by a male employee of Conyers that occurred while the congressman was in a nearby room. The male employee grabbed her and forcibly kissed her and ended up sexually harassing her multiple times, Maher said.
The Ethics Committee had no comment on Monday.
What do you want to guess that before much longer Conyers announces he is resigning from Congress, just to make these allegations go away. Democrats are already feeling, according to Politico, that Conyers isn’t going to survive this:
“I don’t think he can survive this,” said a senior Democratic aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “His family and his staff have done him a huge disservice by letting this go on as long as it has. He should have resigned long ago.”
Amen to that.