Florida congressman accused of abuse
Latest chapter in long battle between husband and ex-wife
ORLANDO, Fla. — The mother of U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson’s children alleges she was the victim of two decades of domestic abuse at the hands of the congressman, according to a report in Politico, including four incidents in Orange County and Virginia where authorities were called.
The Florida Democrat’s attorney, Mark NeJame, denied the allegations.
“This is just more of the same,” NeJame told the Orlando Sentinel. “There are simply false allegations, and she’s a troubled person . ... In fact, every single fact (shows) she’s the one who caused trouble in the home.” In the wake of the allegations, two liberal groups pulled their support for Grayson in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate and asked that he donate their contributions to domestic abuse victims.
Lolita Grayson could not be reached for comment.
The allegations are the latest chapter in a yearslong battle between Alan and Lolita Grayson that has played out in public and the courts.
Last year, a circuit court judge annulled their marriage after finding that Lolita Grayson was still married when the couple married in 1990.
Lolita Grayson claimed she got a divorce in Guam in 1980 but could not prove it.
The annulment then led to court hearings about the custody of four of their children, with Grayson claiming Lolita’s behavior was “bizarre, aggressive and inappropriate.”
Lolita Grayson sent Politico four reports, two from Fairfax County, Va., in 1994 and 1999 and two from Orange County in 2005 and 2014, in which she contends Grayson abused her.
The Orange sheriff’s office verified its two reports. But the purported Virginia police accounts could not be verified by Fairfax County Police because of what they called a lack of research resources.
No arrests or charges were made in any of the incidents.
In an Orange sheriff’s report from November 2005, Lolita claimed her husband threatened to kill her in front of their 10-yearold daughter at their home near Windermere and told a deputy there was “a history of domestic violence with her and her husband, from when they used to live in Virginia.”
In the 1999 Virginia report, she alleged that Alan Grayson hit her on the arm and threw her to the floor in 1994 and that he “hit her on the back of the head with a large rock.”