Second woman accuses Fairfax of sexual assault
A second woman came forward Friday with claims she had been sexually assaulted by Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, alleging that he raped her while they were students at Duke University in 2000 and demanding that he resign immediately.
The statement released by a lawyer for the woman, Meredith Watson, said her client was coming forward out of a sense of civic duty after learning about allegations disclosed this week by Vanessa Tyson, a political science professor at Scripps College, who said she was assaulted by Fairfax in 2004 during the Democratic National Convention.
“The details of Ms. Watson’s attack are similar to those described by Dr. Vanessa Tyson,” said the statement, released by Nancy Erika Smith, a New Jersey lawyer representing Watson. The statement described the rape as “premeditated and aggressive.”
The disclosure comes two days after Tyson issued a statement providing a detailed account of the episode with Fairfax. Her allegations deepened the political leadership crisis in Virginia, where the governor and attorney general are facing calls to resign after admitting in recent days that they donned blackface as younger men. Fairfax has denied he ever assaulted Tyson. In a statement issued shortly after Watson came forward, Fairfax issued another denial, and vowed that he would not resign.
Karen Kessler, a spokeswoman for Watson, said in an interview that Watson is not planning on litigation or seeking financial compensation. “She has been concerned and angered by what she’s been reading about another victim so she decided to tell her story,” said Kessler.
As Tyson’s allegations roiled Virginia politics this week, friends and colleagues of hers have come forward to support her. Two professors currently joining Tyson in a prestigious fellowship at Stanford told The New York Times that she recounted the episode with Fairfax to them last fall, saying he had sexually assaulted her.
“What she told us was pretty much exactly what was in the statement that she released but with vastly less detail,” said Elizabeth A. Armstrong.