2:42 pm Aug. 24, 20122
Representative Jerrold Nadler is calling for Assemblyman Vito Lopez to resign his post in the Assembly and as chair of the Brooklyn Democratic organization, in the wake of sexual assault allegations that resulted in Lopez's censure.
The allegations, which include inappropriate touching of female employees, were found to be credible by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who stripped Lopez of his chairmanship of the Housing Committee this afternoon, and prohibited Lopez from employing interns or employees under the age of 21.
Nadler called the conduct detailed in the report "reprehensible."
“I applaud the work of both the bi-partisan Assembly Ethics Committee and Speaker Silver for the swift and judicious action in removing Assemblyman Vito Lopez from the Chairmanship of the Assembly Housing Committee and in taking other punitive steps as a result of the findings that Assemblyman Lopez was guilty of multiple acts of sexual harassment and abuse," Nadler said in a statement provided by his office.
"In light of the reprehensible conduct revealed by the Ethics Committee, I call upon Assembly Lopez to do the only honorable thing by immediately resigning his positions as a Member of the Assembly and as the County Chair of the Brooklyn Democratic Party."
UPDATE: Lopez tells the Daily News that the charges are "unfounded" and that he will not resign.
Between the ages of 15 and 18, I was a Youth Corps worker at the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Center in the early 1970s. One of approximately 15 other kids around the same age (all under 18). We worked directly under and in close daily contact with Vito Lopez, who was the Center's director and in his early 30s. He did a lot of community work and a lot of good, and he also threw liquor filled parties at the center, for just him and us kids after the center closed for the day, where he would invariably end up at some point late in the party behind a closed door with one or two of his female targets. He was widely known to have had relations with a number of the female staff he was also in charge of. This was a behavior he carried on, by reports from people who still worked there after I left, as a general matter of course. He openly courted my female underage co-workers, successfully realizing his ambitions with more than one girl, not long after they turned 18. Though I haven't been in touch with him for some 40yrs. his record screams unethical behavior for the entire time until now (just look up his involvement with the whole Wyckoff Heights Hospital debacle for starters). That he might only now get some slap on the wrist for just his sexual indiscretions, at 71? 72? Is just a sad commentary on the virulence of this kind of person.
There are jerks like this on both sides of the aisle. If these allegations are true, he should resign. No excuses, no denials. How arrogant of him to say the charges are unfounded. I bet there is a lot in his life that is amiss if he could not control himself around female office staff.