A Republican campaign staffer who accused prominent GOP activist Matt Schlapp of sexual assault has filed a sexual battery lawsuit against Schlapp and his wife for more than $9 million, The New York Times reports.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the Virginia Circuit Court in Alexandria, also accuses both Schlapps of defamation and of conspiracy to impugn the accuser.
The plaintiff, who is listed as John Doe in the lawsuit, says as a result of the Schlapps’ alleged conspiracy, “Mr. Doe suffered damages, including and without limitation embarrassment, humiliation, stress, and reputational harm.”
The complaint “recounts accusations made by a Republican strategist, a male in his late 30s, who alleged that Matt Schlapp fondled him without his consent as he drove Schlapp back to his hotel in Georgia last October. The staffer was working for the Georgia GOP and Herschel Walker’s Senate campaign and had been assigned to drive Schlapp to campaign events in the Atlanta area,” the newspaper reported.
An attorney for the Schlapps denied the allegations in a Tuesday statement, saying the complaint was “false.”
The attorney, Charles Spies, said that the “Schlapp family is suffering unbearable pain and stress due to the false allegation from an anonymous individual.”
Read more in The New York Times.
