Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax is vehemently denying an allegation that he sexually assaulted a woman at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, calling the charge “totally fabricated.”
The assault allegation was first investigated by the Washington Post in 2017, when the accuser reached out to the paper. The Post decided not to run the story since reporters there couldn’t verify the accuser's or Fairfax’s story. Both agreed that they entered her hotel room together but have different stories about what transpired there, the Post reported on Monday.
The allegation surfaced again late Sunday night in a screenshotted conversation between the accuser and a friend that appeared on the conservative blog Big League Politics -- the same site that leaked a racist photo on Governor Ralph Northam’s yearbook page.
Fairfax says a consensual sexual encounter in Boston has been used as a smear at a pivotal moment in his political career. He would ascend to the governor’s office should Northam cave to pressure to step down.
“I was 25-years-old, unmarried, a campaign staffer at the time, and we hit it off,” he said at an impromptu press conference on Monday afternoon. “She was very interested in me. And and so eventually at one point, we ended up going to my hotel room."
“She was very much into a consensual encounter and she even admits in the story,” he said.
Fairfax repeatedly cited the Post’s decision to spike the story as proof of his innocence.
“You don't have to be cynical, you don't have to understand politics to understand what someone's trying to manipulate a process to harm someone's character without any basis whatsoever,” he said.
Fairfax also said he had not spoken to Northam since the governor’s press conference on Saturday.
