Inspired by Ford, Woman Makes an Accusation

Candace Faber points finger at Washington State Sen. Joe Fain
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Sep 29, 2018 11:10 AM CDT
Inspired by Ford, Woman Accuses Lawmaker of Rape
In this Jan. 27, 2017 photo, Senate Republican floor leader Joe Fain, R-Auburn, sits at his desk on the Senate floor in Olympia, Wash.   (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

A woman has accused a Washington state lawmaker of raping her 11 years ago, saying she was inspired to speak out as she watched the televised allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, the AP reports. The lawmaker denied the claim. In a tweet Thursday afternoon, Candace Faber said Republican state Sen. Joe Fain sexually assaulted her in 2007 the night she graduated from Georgetown University in Washington, DC. "I'm done being silent," she writes. Fain says he "absolutely" denies the allegation and called for an investigation. "Any allegation of this serious nature deserves to be heard and investigated for all parties involved," he tells the AP. "I invite and will cooperate with any inquiry."

Fain, 37, was first elected to the Washington state Senate in 2010, three years after the alleged incident. He is a moderate Republican from the Seattle suburb of Auburn and currently the state Senate minority floor leader. A spokeswoman for Gov. Jay Inslee says he supports "a full investigation by law enforcement officials." Faber, 35, in June published an online essay accusing an unnamed Washington state lawmaker of assaulting her in 2007. She wrote that they spent the night dancing and kissing, and that both "drank too much," and when she went back with him to his hotel room, he raped her despite her protests. She asked him for a kiss afterward, and in her essay, she rejected that the kiss request was "not how girls act when they've been raped."

(More rape stories.)

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