Another bombshell story from Ronan Farrow of the New Yorker, who you may remember also broke the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
Now four women have come forward accusing Eric Schneiderman, the Attorney General from NY, of physical abuse.
Schneiderman has been vocal against sexual misconduct and abuse, but faces a reckoning of his own.
Two of the women are on the record and two wish to remain anonymous. One of the unnamed women is prominent in the legal community, and says she was assaulted after she refused his sexual advances. The other three were romantically involved with him.
Farrow did stellar reporting on the Weinstein scandal, vetting everything thoroughly before publishing. Heās done the same here. An excerpt from Ronanās article:
Eric Schneiderman, New Yorkās attorney general, has long been a liberal Democratic champion of womenās rights, and recently he has become an outspoken figure in the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment. As New York Stateās highest-ranking law-enforcement officer, Schneiderman, who is sixty-three, has used his authority to take legal action against the disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein, and to demand greater compensation for the victims of Weinsteinās alleged sexual crimes. Last month, when the Times and this magazine were awarded a joint Pulitzer Prize for coverage of sexual harassment, Schneiderman issued a congratulatory tweet, praising āthe brave women and men who spoke up about the sexual harassment they had endured at the hands of powerful men.ā Without these women, he noted, āthere would not be the critical national reckoning under way.ā
Now Schneiderman is facing a reckoning of his own. As his prominence as a voice against sexual misconduct has risen, so, too, has the distress of four women with whom he has had romantic relationships or encounters. They accuse Schneiderman of having subjected them to nonconsensual physical violence. All have been reluctant to speak out, fearing reprisal. But two of the women, Michelle Manning Barish and Tanya Selvaratnam, have talked to The New Yorker on the record, because they feel that doing so could protect other women. They allege that he repeatedly hit them, often after drinking, frequently in bed and never with their consent. Manning Barish and Selvaratnam categorize the abuse he inflicted on them as āassault.ā They did not report their allegations to the police at the time, but both say that they eventually sought medical attention after having been slapped hard across the ear and face, and also choked. Selvaratnam says that Schneiderman warned her he could have her followed and her phones tapped, and both say that he threatened to kill them if they broke up with him. (Schneidermanās spokesperson said that he ānever made any of these threats.ā)
