10 Women Accuse State Lawmaker Of Sexual Harassment
By Stan Bush
DENVER (CBS4)- A former Democratic legislative aide is now the tenth woman to accuse Rep. Steve Lebsock, a Democrat representing Thornton, of sexual harassment.
In a detailed Facebook post, Cassie Tanner accuses Lebsock of making repeated lewd sexual advances and then publically unbuttoning part of her blouse. The incident happened in 2014 at a Young Democrats function held with other legislative aides at 1UP in LoDo.
"I didn't speak up about it because as an aide I didn't want to cause trouble," Tanner told CBS4 via phone call.
On Friday, public radio station KUNC published a blistering report in which nine women, including Rep. Faith Winter, a Democrat representing Westminter, accused Lebsock of sexual harassment.
Winter says Lebsock became aggressively lewd at a bar on the last day of the 2016 legislative session when he found out that Winter's husband was out of town.
"He proceeded to try and get me to leave the bar with him. He used sexually explicit language describing different sexual acts we could do to each other to make each other happy. He said he would do things my husband would never do," says Winter.
Winter mentioned the incident to Legislative Legal Services, but decided against filing a formal report to keep the issue from going public. She told Lebsock she would only revisit the issue if he continued to harass women.
"I regret not going public when it happened since it did happen to another woman."
Democrats and party leadership are calling for Lebsock to resign. He is running for State Treasurer in 2018. So far he has not said he will drop out from the race or from his current seat.
On his campaign website, Lebsock apologized to Winter for the incident, though he claims to have no memory of any inappropriate behavior. He challenged other accusers to file formal complaints instead of telling their allegations of abuse to the press.
"I have done nothing that can be described as criminal. Nothing," says Lebsock in a statement.
Stan Bush is a general assignment reporter at CBS4. His stories can be seen on CBS4 News at 10. Read his bio and follow him on Twitter @StanBushTV.