Woman names assemblyman as harasser in 2016
SACRAMENTO — Weeks after lobbyist Pamela Lopez told of a state lawmaker following her into a bathroom in 2016 and masturbating in front of her, she filed a formal complaint Monday publicly naming Assemblyman Matt Dababneh.
In an interview, Dababneh told The Times that he “one hundred percent” denied the allegation.
“I am utterly shocked and blown away,” the San Fernando Valley Democrat said. “This is a career-ending charge based on no facts.”
Lopez shared her initial account in October, joining more than 140 women as they denounced in an open letter a “pervasive” culture of sexual harassment and misconduct in the state Capitol.
Then in November, the lobbyist told The Times that the lawmaker in question “was Matt Dababneh.” Based on that information, The Times had been reporting a story and had reached out to Dababneh before Lopez’s news conference Monday.
The accusation comes as a public reckoning over sexual harassment has upended the worlds of politics, entertainment, media and tech.
In Sacramento, Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra (D-Pacoima) resigned last week after allegations from multiple women that he
made unwanted sexual advances throughout his career in state government. State Sen. Tony Mendoza (D-Los Angeles) lost his leadership positions and faces a legislative investigation after multiple allegations of misconduct toward female staffers.
Dababneh — who is unmarried and, at 36, is one of Sacramento’s youngest legislators — has had a fairly rapid rise in state politics.
The UCLA graduate began working for U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Porter Ranch) in 2005, and in 2009 became the congressman’s chief of staff in his district office.
In 2013, Dababneh narrowly won a special election for his Assembly seat in a reliably Democratic district that includes Encino, Tarzana and Woodland Hills. Since then, he has handily won reelection twice, boosted by a flush campaign account and an influential perch as chairman of the Assembly’s Banking and Finance Committee.
Late Monday, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) announced Dababneh would be “temporarily stepping down” from his post pending an outside investigation of Lopez’s allegation.
Lopez, 35, first told her story of the encounter to the New York Times in October, but she declined to name the legislator. At a Nov. 28 Assembly hearing on harassment prevention, she said, “I am fearful of being retaliated against.”
She has told the Los Angeles Times in a series of interviews she worried that naming the legislator would turn him into a scapegoat, distracting from the larger issues of a Capitol culture she believes does not sufficiently protect women. She also told The Times she wasn’t naming him because he holds a powerful position.
Lopez said in the interviews that when she initially told her story to news organizations, she purposely misstated the location, saying it happened in a bar in Sacramento. The reason, she said, was that she feared disclosing the true location — a co-ed bachelor party at a Las Vegas hotel — because it would have made it easier to identify Dababneh.
She said she decided to name him after Assembly Rules Committee Chairman Ken Cooley urged women who have been sexually harassed within the California Capitol community to seek redress through the Legislature.
“He promised a process that will be neutral and unbiased and not rigged to protect powerful men and powerful lawmakers in our community,” she said at the news conference. “In doing this I am choosing to have hope that that process will work, and I am putting this in the hands of the lawmakers who have told me that they will act to protect me.”
‘Panic’ in Las Vegas
Lopez said the incident occurred Jan. 16, 2016. Around 50 elected officials and campaign operatives from the Sacramento and Los Angeles areas had gathered to celebrate their friends’ upcoming wedding.
The Saturday night party was in a room at the SkyLofts, a boutique hotel in the MGM Grand Resort in Las Vegas. An invitation reviewed by The Times playfully called the event a “Grassroots Leadership Training Program.”
Several people who were there confirmed Lopez and Dababneh attended the party. There are differing accounts of what transpired.
Lopez said she was there from early evening until late at night. Dababneh arrived around 8 p.m. and stayed for about 90 minutes, according to two people who attended with him.
Lopez said she found herself briefly chatting with Dababneh, whom she had met before through mutual friends. Dababneh at that point had served in the Legislature for two years. Their interaction was no more than three or four sentences, Lopez said.
An hour or two later, Lopez said she felt a large body following her into a single-use bathroom. She said it was Dababneh, who is more than 6 feet tall and sturdily built.
“The weight of that body was pushing me into the restroom. I heard the door slam behind me,” Lopez said. “I spun around and by the time I had gotten myself spun around, I saw that I was facing Matt Dababneh and he had unzipped his pants and exposed himself and had begun to masturbate.”
Lopez said she backed away from him, her mind racing with the realization of what was happening. “The panic was just immense,” she said.
Lopez said Dababneh demanded that she touch his genitals.
“I remember thinking, at the very least, make it very clear you don’t want to be here,” she said. “Don’t say anything to allow him to misinterpret your refusal as you being shy or coquettish.”
She said she stated firmly she would not touch him, and repeated it multiple times. She said he then asked her to touch him elsewhere, even just rest her arm on him. Lopez said she interpreted the request as a type of attempted negotiation. Again, she refused. She said Dababneh then ejaculated into the toilet. The encounter lasted less than five minutes, Lopez said.
Lopez said that Dababneh immediately expressed regret and disbelief. She said he told her, “‘I can’t believe I just did that.’ ”
Lopez said she pointed him toward the door. As he exited, Lopez said, Dababneh told her not to say anything. She said she turned the request back on him, raising her voice: “Don’t you tell anyone this happened.”
She said she didn’t tell anyone at the party about the encounter, afraid someone would find Dababneh and make a scene.
Lopez said that over the course of the evening, she had several alcoholic beverages, but said she recalled the incident in the bathroom with clarity.
Dababneh said he did not go to the bathroom in the loft. He said he spent the entire night with his friend Ken Maxey and a second friend who attended the party.
Maxey said he saw Lopez speak with Dababneh, but did not recall the assemblyman using the bathroom at the party. Maxey spoke with The Times at the legislator’s request in an interview facilitated by Dababneh’s attorney. Maxey said he was with Dababneh for the “majority” of the night. The second friend, who declined to be named for fear it could affect her job, said she was either with or within eyesight of Dababneh most of the evening.
“I don’t see how it’s possible,” Maxey said of Lopez’s accusation. He said the loft where the party was held had an open layout that would make it difficult for such an incident to go unnoticed.
The host, who declined to be named, told The Times that Lopez texted him the next day suggesting she had a good time.
Lopez said she told her boyfriend, who is now her husband, about the incident the next day. He could not be reached for comment.
Afrack Vargas, Lopez’s business partner at the lobbying firm K Street Consulting, said Lopez told him within days of her return from the Las Vegas trip that Dababneh had pushed her into the bathroom and masturbated.
The Times also spoke with Deanna Johnston, a friend who said Lopez told her about the encounter with Dababneh several weeks after it happened.
When Lopez went public in October — 21 months after the party — with her accusation, top lawmakers swiftly weighed in to condemn the behavior. Both houses made inquiries to Lopez about the incident.
“The behavior she described is horrifying. It is also a crime,” Rendon said in a statement at the time.
Lopez said she contacted the Las Vegas police several weeks ago — after her allies urged her to reach out to law enforcement — to see what her options would be if she decided to press criminal charges. She said the detective she spoke to, whose name she did not recall, could not say if police would open an investigation, given that according to her account there were no witnesses and no physical evidence.
“I didn’t feel confident they would take it seriously. But I wanted to be able to say I had gone to the police,” she said.
Cooley (D-Rancho Cordova) said Monday that the Assembly will refer Lopez’s allegation to an outside investigator. Dababneh said he would cooperate with that inquiry.
“I look forward to any investigation that will give me my reputation back,” he said.
Conduct questioned
Jessica Yas Barker worked as Dababneh’s subordinate in Sherman’s congressional district office in Sherman Oaks from June 2009 to December 2010. She joined Lopez at the news conference Monday.
In November interviews with The Times, Barker recalled that Dababneh regularly spoke about his sexual exploits and made degrading comments about women. She said his behavior was the main factor in her decision to leave her job as a field representative for the congressman after 18 months.
She said over the course of her tenure there that Dababneh frequently made inappropriate comments at work, including talking about his sexual habits and the attire of female staffers. At work events, “he would look around the room and talk about who he had sex with and who he hadn’t,” Barker said. “He was constantly talking about his sexual prowess.”
Barker, now 34, said Dababneh chided her for wearing pants to work, and said she dressed “like a lesbian,” asserting that women should wear dresses. She said he asked female employees, “How’s that glass ceiling treating you?”
Barker said she did not formally report Dababneh’s actions because she was unsure where to file such a complaint. She said she had no reason to believe Sherman was aware of Dababneh’s conduct.
Sherman said that prior to hearing Barker’s allegation, he had “never seen or been told of” any inappropriate behavior or disparagement of women from Dababneh.
“We are redoubling our efforts to make sure that my offices are safe and comfortable places for women and men to work,” Sherman said in a statement to The Times.
Two friends confirmed to The Times that Barker regularly told them about Dababneh’s behavior and that she said it made her feel uncomfortable.
Erin Prangley, Dababneh’s former supervisor in Sherman’s office, said she never received complaints about his behavior. She said she recommended him to succeed her as district chief of staff.
Prangley, who spoke to The Times at Dababneh’s request in an interview facilitated by his attorney, was not in the district office regularly during the time Barker worked there.
A second colleague, who worked in the district office when Barker was there and who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he did not recall Dababneh speaking in the office about sex, his dating life, women’s attire or generally disparaging comments about women. This person also was connected to The Times through Dababneh.
Dababneh denied talking about his sexual exploits in the workplace or making disparaging comments about women or their attire. He said Barker’s accusation was “politically motivated.”
“No one else in that office — that currently works there, that was there then or any of the previous staff that worked with me at that time — would corroborate it,” he said. “That’s just not how I behaved.”
Barker said her personal opinion of Dababneh was not shaped by political differences.
“I disliked Matt’s behavior in the office and his lack of professionalism and his sexism and chauvinism long before he was an elected official,” she said.
‘I spun around and ... I saw that I was facing Matt Dababneh and he had unzipped his pants and exposed himself and had begun to masturbate.’ — PAMELA LOPEZ, lobbyist, in her account of an encounter with the assemblyman in 2016
‘I am utterly shocked and blown away. This is a career-ending charge based on no facts.’ — MATT DABABNEH, Democratic assemblyman, denying Lopez’s allegations