Westchester Assemblyman Tom Abinanti dismissed the allegation as an "underhanded, sneaky" effort.
AP/Hans Pennink
With simply days to go earlier than subsequent week’s main election, a former constituent of Westchester Assemblyman Tom Abinanti is accusing him of diminishing the notion of date rape at a 2018 assembly of native Democrats.
The six-term legislator faces a tricky problem from county legislator MaryJane Shimsky, whose marketing campaign insists she has nothing to do with a June 16 Medium publish the place Liv Bespolka makes the allegation whereas urging voters to toss Abinanti from workplace.
“You went on a protracted tangent denigrating date rape, saying it focused males, that it was all faculty aged women who simply regretted their sexual exercise and accused their companions of rape. I vividly bear in mind these dismissive air quotes you used whereas describing ‘date rape,’” Bespolka — who makes use of they as a private pronoun — mentioned within the publish.
The alleged feedback had been particularly hurtful to the then-19-year-old Bespolka due to “date rape, stalking, and abuse” Bespoka mentioned they endured whereas in school the yr earlier than.
Official minutes from the Sept. 15, 2018, assembly of the Mt. Nice Democratic Committee present Abinanti mentioned “his marketing campaign for re-election” with scant element of his particular feedback. No audio or video recording of the assembly exists.
“I didn't make the feedback alleged,” Abinanti instructed The Submit.
“The false allegation is opposite to who I'm as an individual, a husband, a father and a public servant. My report of years of public service is evident: I've spent my profession championing ladies’s rights and assist for survivors,” he added.
Two leaders of the Mt. Nice membership, which has endorsed him for re-election, backed his account in separate interviews with The Submit.
“I'd have seen and I do know that I didn't see or hear something like that,” committee vice chair Francesca Hagadus-McHale mentioned.
However Bespolka’s mom, Rosamond Kinzler, instructed The Submit she attended the assembly and backed up their account, together with the use by Abinanti of air quotes with the phrase “date rape.”
Her husband, Carl Bespolka, mentioned he heard about all of it after Liv and Rosamond got here dwelling from the 2018 assembly whereas a former co-worker says Liv Bespolka talked about it in 2020.
Abinanti dismissed the allegation as an “underhanded, sneaky” effort by political opponents supporting Shimsky, however Bespolka mentioned talking out earlier than election day is about far more than who wins the Democratic main subsequent Tuesday.
“Individuals who run for workplace and are in workplace must be held accountable for the issues they are saying and acknowledge that the phrases they are saying have an effect past possibly what they perceive and be prepared for the results of these issues,” Bespolka mentioned.
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