Seattle Mayor Ed Murray has been accused in a lawsuit of sexually molesting a teenage high-school dropout in the 1980s, the AP reports. Two other men tell the Seattle Times that Murray abused them in the 1980s, when they lived in an Oregon center for troubled children. The allegations were denied by Murray through a spokesman, who 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." In the suit filed in King County Superior Court, a 46-year-old identified only as D.H. said Murray "raped and molested him" over several years, beginning in 1986, when he was 15 and addicted to crack and Murray was in his early 30s.
Murray paid him $10 to $20 for each of at least 50 encounters over four to five years, the lawsuit says. "I have been dealing with this for over 30 years," the man told the Times, adding he was coming forward as part of a "healing process." The paper also reports two other men accused Murray of abusing them in the 1980s and paying them for sex, and they're willing to testify. Jeff Simpson and Lloyd Anderson say they knew Murray when they lived in the Portland center for troubled kids. The Times says one of them talked with a social worker and detective then; no charges were filed. Simpson and Anderson raised the allegations a decade ago and repeated them in recent interviews. Having sex with a child under 16—the state's age of legal consent in 1986 and now—constitutes rape of a child. The statute of limitations on any crime would have expired long ago. (More Seattle stories.)
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