Walker campaign staffer lawsuit says GOP activist groped him
A staffer who worked for Herschel Walker’s Republican Senate campaign filed a lawsuit against prominent conservative activist Matt Schlapp on Tuesday, accusing Schlapp of groping him during a car ride in Georgia before last year’s midterm election.
Schlapp refutes the allegation and his lawyer claims they are looking into a countersuit.
The staffer’s battery and defamation lawsuit was filed in Alexandria Circuit Court in Virginia, where Schlapp lives, and seeks more than $9 million in damages.
It accuses Schlapp of “aggressively fondling” the staffer’s “genital area in a sustained fashion” while the staffer was driving Schlapp back to his hotel from a bar in October after a Walker campaign event. These are the allegations first reported earlier This month, The Daily Beast
The staffer filed the lawsuit anonymously as “John Doe,” citing his status as an alleged sexual assault victim and fearing backlash from supporters of Schlapp, a longtime adviser to former President Donald Trump and chair of the American Conservative Union, which organizes the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Schlapp and Mercedes, who were both in Trump’s White House as directors of strategic communications, are also accused of defamation.
In a statement, Schlapp lawyer Charlie Spies denied the allegation, saying, “The complaint is false and the Schlapp family is suffering unbearable pain and stress due to the false allegation from an anonymous individual.” He said the legal team was “assessing counter-lawsuit options.”
According to the lawsuit Matt Schlapp was in Georgia to campaign for Walker in the final days of general election season, according to the suit. ended up losing a runoff election Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock. The lawsuit alleges that, after the staffer drove Schlapp back to Atlanta after a campaign event, the two visited a local bar, where Schlapp, according to the suit, “sat unusually close” to the accuser, “such that his leg repeatedly contacted, and was in almost constant contact with Mr. Doe’s leg.”
The staffer says he offered to drive Schlapp back to his hotel, but during the car ride, Schlapp allegedly placed his hand on the staffer’s leg without consent, leaving him “frozen with shock, mortification and fear from what was happening, particularly given Mr. Schlapp’s power and status in conservative social circles.”
According to the suit, Schlapp invited the staffer to his room when they arrived at the hotel. The staffer declined. Later, he informed senior campaign staff about the incident and recorded a video detailing the events.
“As a direct and proximate result of Mr. Schlapp’s battery upon Mr. Doe, Mr. Doe suffered damages, including without limitation shock, mortification, horror, humiliation, and distress,” it reads.
The Associated Press reached out to former Walker campaign senior aides but they did not immediately respond to messages.
Timothy Hyland, a lawyer representing the staffer, declined to comment, but sent a statement from his law firm calling Schlapp a “sexual predator” who needs to be held accountable.
“Our client takes no joy in filing this lawsuit. But Mr. Schlapp had plenty of time to take responsibility for his deplorable actions and to apologize. But instead of doing the right thing, Mr. Schlapp, Ms. Schlapp, and their friends and associates embarked on a ridiculous, spurious and defamatory attempt to smear the reputation of Mr. Schlapp’s victim,” it said.
This suit was first reported by The New York Times.