Mayor Murray's lawyer: Medical exam shows case should be dropped

Ed Murray’s lawyer says a doctor’s exam shows sexual assault allegations against the Seattle mayor are false.

A civil lawsuit filed last week against Murray accuses him of raping a teenager in the 1980s. The lawsuit describes a mole or lump on Murray’s genitals.

But on Tuesday, attorney Bob Sulkin said the mayor underwent an examination by a doctor, who found no sign of such a mark.

He called the lawsuit's description "the heart of the allegation."

"Why this allegation was put in the complaint was because it is so private," Sulkin said. "This is why it was put in and it's false."

Sulkin called for the lawsuit to be dropped.

Sulkin and Murray’s personal spokesman provided the news media with copies of the medical exam conducted on the mayor Monday.

Lincoln Beauregard, a lawyer for the plaintiff, identified in the lawsuit as D.H., called Sulkin's statements "victim blaming" and questioned the choice of the doctor.

"The mayor’s team hired their own medical witness to look at the mayor’s private parts and declared that which nobody in the public can verify — until long after the election filing deadline of May 19," Beauregard said in an email statement (full text below).

That deadline is a reference to who might come forward to challenge Murray's re-election bid -- which had been viewed as a relatively easy campaign before these allegations were made.

In the lawsuit, D.H. alleges that Murray paid him for sex and sexually assaulted him in 1986 when he was 15. The suit also alleges that Murray knew the plaintiff was underage at the time. The age of consent was — and still is — age 16 in Washington state.

D.H. is now 46 and lives in Kent.

Murray would have been in his early 30s at the time D.H. claims the sexual contact was taking place.

Two other men say Murray abused them as well, according to the Seattle Times. The Times said those men considered filing lawsuits about a decade ago when Murray was a state lawmaker but their attorney later withdrew.

Murray vigorously denies the allegations. He said in a press conference last Friday that he'll continue to serve as mayor and continue to run for re-election.

He reiterated his denial in a statement Wednesday. He said the accusation has been hard on his family and, in light of his medical exam, should be laid to rest.

A statement from a spokesman last week said: “These false accusations are intended to damage a prominent elected official who has been a defender of vulnerable populations for decades.”

The Seattle City Council is not commenting on the allegations against Murray.

The full text of Lincoln Beauregard's response to Sulkin's news conference:

D.H. has found peace in knowing that two other of the Mayor’s victims were given a voice as a result of D.H.’s having stepped forward. In relation to the prior victims, the Mayor’s political hit team used thousands of dollars of publicly collected campaign funds to extinguish their voices. The latest strategy is victim blaming.

Immediately after this lawsuit was filed, on Friday morning, we sent the Mayor’s attorney a letter inviting his legal team to depose D.H. as quickly as this week, or even this afternoon. We received no response whatsoever. Instead, the Mayor’s team hired their own medical witness to look at the Mayor’s private parts and declared that which nobody in the public can verify — until long after the election filing deadline of May 19. We look forward to fighting the merits of this lawsuit in the appropriate venue and exploring the need for an independent medical exam as ordered by the court. But if the Mayor’s mole doesn’t fit the description as observed by D.H. and another victim who tried to come forward in 2008, why didn’t the Mayor just say so at his first press conference on Friday?

Our invitation to the Mayor and his clever lawyers to immediately confront our client under oath remains open, and unanswered. The fact that the Mayor has already spent his working days trying to disprove the details of his private parts (which shouldn’t require a medical evaluation) emphasizes the need to consider the calls for him to step aside and not utilize public resources and campaign funds to fight this lawsuit. A petition is circulating and can be found in the comment section of the stories published online in the Seattle Times. The public should please understand that D.H. is not running for office, he is planning to win this lawsuit on the merits in due time. After the trial, in April of 2018, a jury is likely to confirm that this City’s Mayor is a serial child molester.