2 women accuse Indiana AG of groping

INDIANAPOLIS — Two women came forward Friday to publicly accuse Attorney General Curtis Hill of groping them during a party earlier this year, increasing pressure on the embattled Republican to resign.

Democratic state Rep. Mara Candelaria Reardon published her account of the March 15 incident, which occurred at an Indianapolis bar, in the Northwest Indiana Times newspaper.

Gabrielle McLemore, the Indiana Senate Democrats’ communications director, told the Associated Press that she decided to go public partly out of frustration that Hill issued a defiant statement Friday calling the allegations false.

Candelaria Reardon described Hill’s behaviour as “deviant” when she encountered him in the early morning hours after the legislative session ended for the year. She says he leaned toward her, put his hand on her back, slid it down and grabbed her buttocks. The Munster lawmaker says she told Hill to “back off,” but he approached again later in the night, put his hand on her back and said: “That skin. That back.”

Hill said he has no intention of stepping down despite calls to do so. “I am not resigning. The allegations against me are vicious and false,” he said in a statement Friday. “At no time did I ever grab or touch anyone inappropriately.”

That’s at odds with the accounts of both Candelaria Reardon and McLemore.

McLemore said Hill cornered her at the party and asked, “Do you know who I am?” and proceeded to massage her back, while she worried what others who noticed Hill’s unwanted advances would think.

McLemore said she never wanted to come forward, but changed her mind after seeing that earlier on Friday Candelaria Reardon had come forward, and that Hill continued to deny he did anything wrong.