A Maryland woman said Friday she was raped by Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax (D) in a “premeditated and aggressive” assault in 2000, while they both were undergraduate students at Duke University. She is the second woman this week to make an accusation of sexual assault.
The woman, Meredith Watson, said Friday in a written statement through her attorney that she shared her account immediately after it happened with several classmates and friends. Watson did not speak publicly Friday and her lawyer did not make her available for an interview.
Watson was friends with Fairfax at Duke but they never dated or had any romantic relationship, the lawyer, Nancy Erika Smith, said.
“At this time, Ms. Watson is reluctantly coming forward out of a strong sense of civic duty and her belief that those seeking or serving in public office should be of the highest character,” Smith said in the statement . “She has no interest in becoming a media personality or reliving the trauma that has greatly affected her life. Similarly, she is not seeking any financial damages.”
Watson wants Fairfax to resign from office, Smith said.
Fairfax’s spokeswoman, Lauren Burke, said “we’re calling for an investigation on all of these matters.” She said Fairfax would have further response later.
Smith said the details of Watson’s attack are similar to those described by Tyson.
Kaneedreck Adams, 40, an attorney who attended Duke with Watson and said that in the spring of 2000, when they lived across from each other in on-campus apartments, Watson came to her crying.
She was upset,” Adams said. “She told me she had been raped and she named Justin.”
“She said she couldn’t speak, but she was trying to get up and he kept pushing her down,” Adams. “She said he knew that she didn’t like what was happening, but he kept pushing her down.”
The alleged attack happened at fraternity house, Adams said.
She said both the women were friends with Fairfax, who was one year ahead of them in school.
Watson’s attorney provided an email exchange from 2016 between Watson and Milagros Joye Brown, a friend from Duke. Brown was inviting a group of Duke friends to a fundraiser for Fairfax, as he launched his campaign for lieutenant governor.
“Molly, Justin raped me in college and I don’t want to hear anything about him. Please, please, please remove me form any future emails about him please,” Watson wrote on Oct. 26, 2016.
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