PATRICK BROWN ACCUSED OF SEXUAL MISCONDUCT
Two women tell CTV Tory leader asked for sex acts, made sexual advances in separate incidents years ago
Two women are alleging serious sexual misconduct by Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown, CTV news has reported.
The allegations follow similar storylines — both women were young at the time, with one in high school and one in the first year of university. Both say they were drunk at the time, after being out at a bar with Brown. Both allege that the incidents occurred in Brown’s home, and that he was sober.
Brown’s lawyer, Jonathan Lisus, told CTV that Brown “categorically denies these false and defamatory allegations.”
One of the women, then a high school student, said Brown asked her for a sex act. “He pulled down his pants and I don’t know if he said ‘suck my dick’ or ‘put this in my mouth’ but something along those lines,” the woman said.
The alleged incident occurred over 10 years ago. At the time, Brown was a politician in Barrie. The student met him at a bar with a mutual friend. She was under Ontario’s legal drinking age at the time. Brown, a teetotaller, wasn’t drinking but invited both back to his home, the woman told CTV.
She said she was drunk at the time, and Brown offered her a tour of the house.
“He kind of shut the door on me and started making moves,” she said. “I kind of came to, frantic, like ’kay, you need to let me out, I’m leaving.”
They were in the room for between five and 10 minutes, she said, describing the situation as “controlling.”
The second woman’s allegations come from 2012, when Brown was a federal MP under Stephen Harper. The pair met on an Air Canada flight. She was 18 at the time, and in her first year of university.
Later that night, the woman said, Brown looked her up and sent her a Facebook message. “Are you impressed I remembered your name. I am LOL,” he wrote.
He gave her his phone number, and names of Barrie bars he’d be at. “If you ever need to skip a line in downtown Barrie just text me,” he said, according to CTV. “I laughed it off as older man hitting on me,” she said.
The next year, she asked Brown for a summer job, which she began in his constituency office. She was told to organize a Hockey Night in Barrie charity game that Brown hosts on an annual basis.
There was an after-party in a local nightclub, where the woman said Brown and others provided her with many free drinks. “It was too many to count,” she said. When the bar closed, they all went to Brown’s house. Images from the party were captured on social media.
The second woman said she was drunk when Brown, who again wasn’t drinking, invited her and his male friend to his bedroom to look at photographs. The friend left, leaving her and Brown sitting on the bed.
“That scenario, like of a very inebriated young employee in the bedroom of her boss, alone with him, who hasn’t had a drop of alcohol all night, just that’s an intimidating situation and I was not sure what to do about it,” she told CTV. “The next thing I know he’s kissing me.”
She said she froze, and that he continued to kiss her, laid her down and got on top of her. “I remember consciously trying not to move my mouth and I was just not moving, so I was laying there immobile,” she said.
“I could feel his erection on my legs when he was on top of me, so I felt that it would have gone to sexual intercourse if I had not done anything.”
She said she informed Brown she had a boyfriend, which she did, and that he needed to take her home. He then allegedly drove her to her parents’ house.
“I would characterize that as a sexual assault,” she said.
After that party, the woman said Brown pressed her to join a trip to India as his assistant, promising to cover all her expenses, and gave her a raise. “He told me that I, you know, he thought that I would look really good on an elephant,” she said. “I remember thinking, well, would I have my own hotel room? . . . Is there some sort of expectation?”
The woman said she did not report it to authorities or otherwise because she didn’t know what options she had, and tried to move on.
CTV News corroborated the account with four people close to the woman, who said she recounted the incident with Brown in the months afterward. She returned to work for Brown the following summer.
“Despite the fact that this happened, I didn’t want to let this impede on what I saw then as a career opportunity,” she said, adding that she’s choosing to speak out now to support women in similar situations.