Pa. Senate leader urges Leach to resign
HARRISBURG — State Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa on Thursday called for Sen. Daylin Leach, D-Montgomery County, to resign following a law firm’s “preliminary report” on its investigation of sexual assault or harassment allegations levied against Mr. Leach.
The report described “a lengthy pattern of troubling behavior spanning several years regarding Sen. Leach’s interactions with a number of women,” according to a statement released Thursday by the Senate Democratic caucus. Mr. Costa, D-Forest Hills, said in the statement that the probe found evidence of “irresponsible behavior and an unacceptable workplace.”
Senate Democrats on Wednesday met privately with lawyers from Eckert Seamans to hear results of the firm’s investigation. The Democratic caucus did not release that preliminary report, saying senators had requested additional information and a final version would be produced in the future.
According to Mr. Costa: “Sen. Leach’s course of conduct created an unprofessional and sexualized environment. That should not be tolerated in any workplace; we will not tolerate it here.”
Mr. Leach shot back, accusing Mr. Costa of saying “things he knows to be false.” In an interview, he accused Mr. Costa of caving to pressure from some inside the caucus, saying he had previously been told the report was completed and would exonerate him.
“You don’t get to reopen a completed investigation because someone doesn’t like the result,” Mr. Leach said, adding later: “Essentially, this is a cover-up.”
Mr. Leach said he believes he is “the only member of the caucus not to have seen [the report].” He said he has requested a copy and wouldn’t object if it were released.
Mr. Leach did release a 26-page PowerPoint presentation produced by Eckert Seamans, a document he said “absolved me of false charges ...”
One slide at the end of the
document, which addresses “Leach’s behavior as a member of the Senate,” contains the following: “No evidence of actionable discrimination or harassment in violation of applicable law or Caucus policies; Senator Leach engaged in joking and humor that was immature and unprofessional; Jokes with a sexual context have the potential to create a hostile work environment.”
The presentation mentions nine sets of allegations. It indicates investigators reviewed thousands of pages of documents and interviewed 19 witnesses.
The presentation includes several recommendations, including training on sexual harassment and hostile work environments and applying caucus policies against harassment to senators’ campaigns.
Mr. Costa announced in January that he had hired Eckert Seamans to investigate a complaint by Cara Taylor, an Allentown-area woman who alleges that Mr. Leach lured her into oral sex in 1991, when she was 17 and he was a lawyer representing her mother in a criminal case.
He has denied the allegation and filed a defamation suit against Ms. Taylor and others who support her. In paperwork from that case, he called the 1991 incident “fictional.”
A slide in the PowerPoint presentation says “certain factual inconsistencies in Ms. Taylor’s recollection of events exist.” It also says she “steadfastly believed her account of what transpired — her testimony on this point was detailed and passionate.”
“Ultimately, credibility disputes occasioned by the passage of time, among other things, may only be resolved through a contested hearing held under oath where witnesses are subject to either criminal or civil process, rules and sanctions.”
Ms. Taylor’s attorneys, Carrie Goldberg and Marni Snyder, said they hope the caucus will demand Mr. Leach’s resignation. Still, they were critical of some parts of the probe.
“We are astonished that the private law firm leading the investigation felt Leach’s 28 years of sexual misconduct could be cured by mere sexual harassment training,” they wrote in a joint statement. “This is misguided.”
Among the newly public allegations raised in the presentation was that Mr. Leach and a former employee watched a video clip that some people could describe as pornographic.
Mr. Leach, in the interview, said the employee showed him the video and one of his staff members “took corrective measures” after she heard about it.
“I wasn’t offended,” Mr. Leach said. “I probably should have been more direct about, ‘This is not the place.’”
The presentation also indicates that investigators looked at some allegations raised in an article published by The Philadelphia Inquirer. The story revealed that eight women and three men have claimed that Mr. Leach inappropriately touched female campaign staffers or subjected them to sexualized conversations. The presentation provides varying levels of detail about the firm’s findings on the allegations. Some, it says, did not rise to the lawyers’ definition of “actionable sexual harassment.”
In his statement, Mr. Leach acknowledged poor judgment.
“I have always felt that humor was a force for light in an often very dark world,” Mr. Leach wrote. “But the goal was always to make people laugh, and never to make them uncomfortable. I apologize to anyone who may have been offended, and I will work hard to do better.”