Democratic Congressman Beats Boehner-Supported Gay GOP Candidate Accused Of Sexual Harassment

A highly-controversial candidate accused of sexual harassment, public masturbation, and plagiarism in his campaign has lost in a highly-contested congressional race.

Carl Demaio (image, right) has lost his bid to become a U.S. Congressman, and incumbent Democratic Rep. Scott Peters has been declared the winner after a very close race. The AP called the election for Peters (image, left) last night, noting that “Peters led with 51.3 percent of the vote to 48.8 percent for Carl DeMaio, a 4,491-vote lead.”

The California Republican, who is gay, has been trying to elevate his profile for years despite also fighting allegations of sexual harassment – including masturbating in public – from both Republicans and Democrats, along with plagiarism.

John Boehner has helped fundraise for DeMaio, despite a long trail of sexual harassment allegations. The Speaker of the House even headlined a “$1,000 per plate fundraising event” for DeMaio in California.

John Aravosis at AmericaBlog has been watching DeMaio’s career closely. 

DeMaio, you see, is currently facing multiple allegations of having publicly masturbated in front of coworkers at the office, including his own staff.

The first accusation came from a Democratic city council member.

The second and third came from two former DeMaio staffers, both men, both Republican, one gay and one straight.

The latter, Justin Harper, is also a recent veteran of the US Navy.

The fact that both young men are Republicans tends to undermine DeMaio’s ongoing claims that this is all just Democratic dirty tricks.

There is also a fourth allegation that I haven’t been able to nail down the details of — but once you get to three accusations of sexual harassment from three different people, including two of your own employees, the charges become extremely difficult to dismiss out of hand.

In an earlier report, Aravosis explained one of the allegations, noting that a “former staffer, who was 28 at the time, is alleging, in some detail, that DeMaio, 40, not only groped him, but masturbated in front of the young(ish) man.”

DeMaio was already under the pall of another public masturbation scandal from last year, when a fellow city councilman claimed that he twice caught DeMaio masturbating in a city hall restroom.

He points to a CNN report:

One morning last April, Bosnich said he arrived early at campaign headquarters and DeMaio called him back to his office.

“I came over to his office, door was open. And he was masturbating,” Bosnich said. “I saw his hand, his penis in his hand and he had a smile on his face. And as soon as I came over he was looking at me.”

There was no mistaking what was happening, he said.

And he writes about another allegation:

DeMaio’s latest accuser is Justin Harper, 25, a five-year Navy veteran who left the military in December of 2012, and started working on DeMaio’s congressional campaign in February of 2014.

Harper says he quit in July of this year, two days after he claims DeMaio walked out of a bathroom stall with his fly open and his penis in his hand.

“I was at the urinal, and (DeMaio) came from the stall that was closest to the urinal and was kind of just standing there hovering,” Harper said. “I turned around and realized that it was Carl. He had his pants up, but his fly was undone, and he had his hand grasping his genitals.”

DeMaio is openly gay. Harper is straight.

Blogger Joe Jervis has also reported extensively on DeMaio, and notes not only has “a former staffer accused him of sexual harassment,” but “bribery.” And he has admitted to plagiarism in his campaign, by a former staffer.

In May, Jervis wrote:

Another news story alleges that DeMaio was secretly behind the drive to recall disgraced former Mayor Bob Filner, presumably with the intent to position DeMaio to replace him. Filner resigned before the recall campaign officially launched. Last July the Log Cabin Republicans endorsed DeMaio’s bid for the US House. In 2012 local LGBT activists organized a campaign to boo DeMaio during that year’s pride parade, noting that he’d been reluctant to endorse marriage equality and had accepted donations from backers of Proposition 8. DeMaio, a wealthy political consultant, is vehemently anti-union and has vowed that LGBT rights will never affect his political decisions.

That the race was so close is emblematic of just what Republicans will swallow to gain power.

 

Image via YouTube
Hat tip: Capital T Capital J