Pol Who Blocked Key Child Sex Abuse Bill Censured for Harassing Women

Failed Messiah
August 25, 2012

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2012/08/pol-who-blocked-key-child-sex-abuse-bill-censured-for-harassing-women-678.html

NY State Assemblyman Vito Lopez, Brooklyn's Democratic Party boss and power broker, has lost his committee chairmanship, enjoined from employing people under 21-years-old or from having interns, and has been censured after the Assembly's Ethics Committeefound that Lopez had repeatedly sexually harassed two younf female employees in June and July. Lopez blocked passage of the Markey Bill (Child Victims Act) meant to make pedophiles accountable for their crimes, working closely with the Catholic Church and Satmar to ensure the bill's failure.

Vito Lopez

The NY Times reports:

Vito J. Lopez, the Brooklyn Democratic leader and longtime political power broker there, has been stripped of his committee chairmanship, barred from employing young people, and censured after an Assembly committee determined that he had sexually harassed two female employees this summer.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, said that the Assembly’s ethics committee had unanimously found allegations of both verbal and physical harassment to be credible.

“There were multiple incidents of unwelcome physical conduct toward one complainant, wherein you put your hand on her leg, she removed your hand, and you then put your hand between her upper thighs, putting your hand as far up between her legs as you could go,” Mr. Silver wrote, describing the committee’s findings.

He also said, “There was pervasive unwelcome verbal conduct by you toward both complainants from early June 2012 until the time they made complaints of sexual harassment in mid-July 2012, including repeated comments about their physical appearance, their bodies, their attire, and their private relationships.”

He said that Mr. Lopez “required” one of the women to travel with him to Atlantic City last month, where he attempted to kiss her, and that “she struggled to fend you off before you stopped, and that on the drive back from Atlantic City you again put your hand between her legs.”…