NEW YORK
Staten Island Advance
By Tom Wrobleski/Staten Island Advance
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Officials on Staten Island and elsewhere called for Assemblyman Vito Lopez to resign as Brooklyn Democratic Party chairman after the Assembly Committee on Ethics and Guidance found Friday that he violated the chamber’s sexual harassment policy, and stripped him of his committee chairmanship and seniority.
“For the good of the party, he should step aside as party chairman,” said state Sen. Diane Savino (D-North Shore/Brooklyn), whose district crosses into Kings County.
The bipartisan eight-member committee unanimously found that Lopez, 71, created a hostile workplace, including verbal and physical sexual abuse, and that his response to the allegations was “not credible.”
Complaints by two staff members included repeated unwelcome comments about their bodies and attire, as well as attempts to kiss and put his hands between the legs of one of them when he required that she travel with him to Atlantic City, N.J., in July.
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