Ramirez and nonprofit are flooded with threats

Deborah Ramirez and the Boulder domesticviolence support organization she’s affiliated with have been inundated with threats and hateful messages in the days since she went public with allegations that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh exposed himself to her decades ago.

Ramirez, described by her friends as a private person, has been subjected to a whirlwind of national attention as the second woman to say Kavanaugh committed sexual misconduct against her. She has received a multitude of threatening and hateful messages after speaking to The New Yorker about her memories of the alleged incident, her attorney and a friend said Wednesday.

President Donald Trump also attacked Ramirez on Tuesday while speaking to reporters after a speech at the United Nations

General Assembly. He said she “has nothing,” and discredited her account because she said she was drunk at the time of the alleged incident at a Yale University dorm party in the early 1980s.

Kavanaugh has denied her story.

“She’s holding up very well, given the circumstances,” said William Pittard, the Washington, D.C., lawyer representing Ramirez along with Boulder attorney John Clune. “It’s an absolutely overwhelming experience for anybody.”

Ramirez is on approved leave from her position as a volunteer coordinator with Boulder County’s Department of Housing & Human Services, a county spokeswoman said Wednesday. Boulder police haven’t received any reports of threats and harassment toward Ramirez, but police spokeswoman Shannon Aulabaugh said the 53yearold longtime Boulder resident has been consulting with a private security firm to help keep her safe.

Clune wrote on Twitter on Wednesday afternoon that Trump said all three women who had publicly reported that Kavanaugh committed sexual misconduct could testify Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, a California professor who said the federal appellate judge sexually assaulted her in high school, are scheduled to testify then.

But Clune said he had not received a response to Ramirez’s request for an FBI investigation into her allegations and that Republican staff on the committee refused to speak to him on the phone. Clune hasn’t returned multiple requests for an interview from The Denver Post.

“This hearing feels like a setup, designed to obstruct the truth and guarantee a political outcome,” he wrote on Twitter. “Debbie Ramirez is ready to speak with the FBI now.”

Malicious and hateful phone calls and messages are nothing new to the staff of Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence. Abusers and others regularly target the Boulder domesticviolence nonprofit organization because it helps survivors, executive director Anne Tapp said Wednesday.

But since Ramirez, a board member and former employee, came forward with her story, the 37 staff members and 10 board members of Safehouse have been subjected to an onslaught of hateful and threatening calls and messages from strangers across the country. The organization has enacted the security protocols it uses when it faces a threat.

“We are unfortunately used to this,” Tapp said. “It’s not surprising, but it’s very hurtful.”

Ramirez, who remains in Boulder, also has received threatening messages, said Tapp, who has been in contact with her friend.

“It’s heartwrenching,” Tapp said. “To see her go through this is painful.”

Strangers have contacted Safehouse through phone calls, emails, Facebook and any other method of electronic communication to spew hatred toward Ramirez and the nonprofit, Tapp said. While the organization has been able to screen a few, staffers are referring some of the worst to Ramirez’s private security.

“We’re used to shielding ourselves around those professional attacks,” Tapp said.