Sanctuary City Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, famed as a staunch gay rights advocate and a champion of progressive causes, is being sued by a man who said he was raped by Murray when he was 15 years old. Two other men have also accused Murray. The incidents took place in the 1980s. Mayor Murray denies the accusations.
A 46-year-old Kent man sued Seattle Mayor Ed Murray on Thursday, claiming Murray “raped and molested him” over several years, beginning in 1986 when the man was a 15-year-old high-school dropout.
The man said he has come forward now because his father died and he no longer feels the need to keep it secret.
The lawsuit in King County Superior Court, filed under the man’s initials, “D.H.,” alleges Murray sexually abused the crack-cocaine addicted teen on numerous occasions for payments of $10 to $20.
“I have been dealing with this for over 30 years,” the man, now sober for a year, said in an interview with The Seattle Times. He said he was coming forward as part of a “healing process” after years of “the shame, the embarrassment, the guilt, the humiliation that I put myself through and that he put me through.”
Murray’s spokesman, Jeff Reading, 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. These unsubstantiated assertions, dating back three decades, are categorically false. Mayor Murray has never engaged in an inappropriate relationship with any minor. … Mayor Murray will vigorously fight these allegations in court.”
If this is true and he’s running for office, he needs to be stopped. Surely, we haven’t gotten so “liberal” that child rapists are acceptable as office holders.
Two men, Jeff Simpson and Lloyd Anderson, said they knew Murray when they were teenagers growing up in a Portland, Ore., center for troubled children. They are also accusing Murray of sexual molestation. Simpson made the claim as a teenager in 1984, and talked with a social worker and detective at the time. No charges were filed.
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Oftentimes these youth have such troubled histories that they would never be believed and, in those days, people tended to write them off.
Both men raised the allegations a decade ago in calls to reporters and Washington state lawmakers, and they repeated them in recent interviews with the Times, saying they would testify in court if needed.
Simpson, 49, also says Murray — whom he thought of as a father — raped him over several years, starting at age 13, and in later years, paid him. Simpson’s adoptive family abandoned him at age 3 when he set the Christmas tree on fire. Murray was the only father he had known.
On a recent Sunday, two Times reporters showed up unannounced at the Portland-area apartment that Simpson, now a public roads crew worker, shares with his wife and teenaged son. He appeared surprised, but immediately said he had prayed someone would eventually come knock on his door.
“I would really like for him to admit it and to take responsibility … ” Simpson said of Murray. “I don’t necessarily think that he destroyed my life but I believe a lot of the problems I have stemmed from this.”
