Third accuser surfaces against US Supreme Court nominee

A third woman is expected to publicly make accusations of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh this week, her attorney Michael Avenatti said, plunging the judge’s confirmation to America’s highest court into further uncertainty, says a report in The Guardian. ‘She reached out to me. We vetted her claim and she satisfactorily passed that vetting,’ Avenatti said of the new accuser in an interview with the newspaper. Avenatti said the woman has also asked to testify at a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, which will hear from California Professor Christine Blasey Ford, who has alleged the judge drunkenly sexually assaulted her while in high school. The fresh allegations relate to Kavanaugh’s school days when he attended the elite Georgetown prep school in Maryland, where Ford has already accused him of a violent sexual attack at a party there when he was 17 and she was 15. Those allegations turned his confirmation process upside down. A second accuser, Deborah Ramirez, came forward on Sunday to say that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party when he was a freshman at Yale (see report below). Matters relating to the additional individual date back to Georgetown preparatory school, Avenatti said. ‘I’m going to be representing her and I may be representing some corroborating witnesses, and we plan on releasing additional information,’ he told The Guardian. It notes Avenatti is better known as the combative, anti-Trump lawyer representing Stormy Daniels, who made her name as an actor and producer of pornographic films. Daniels is involved in multiple civil cases with the President and his one-time lawyer, Michael Cohen, over her account that she had an affair with Trump in the past. Trump denies the affair.

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The second accuser surfaced on Sunday. According to a BBC News report,  Ramirez detailed the alleged incident to the New Yorker. She alleges Kavanaugh exposed his genitals at a dormitory party and thrust them in her face, causing physical contact without consent. The judge has denied all the allegations. Professor Christine Blasey Ford, who last week came forward as the woman alleging Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in 1982, has agreed to testify about the allegation on Thursday. Ramirez alleges the incident occurred when she was a freshman at Yale University alongside Kavanaugh during the 1983-4 academic year. She says they were both taking part in a drinking game at a dormitory party where people sat in a circle and selected others to drink. She says at one point, a plastic penis was pointed in her direction by one man, and later another exposed himself directly. ‘I remember a penis being in front of my face,’ she said. ‘I knew that's not what I wanted, even in that state of mind.’ Ramirez said she was mocked and taunted when she remarked it wasn't real, and then ended up touching the genitals while attempting to push the man away. ‘I wasn't going to touch a penis until I was married,’ she said, referring to her devout Catholic upbringing. ‘I was embarrassed and ashamed and humiliated.’ She says she remembers Mr Kavanaugh standing to her right and laughing, pulling up his pants. The article says the 53-year-old acknowledges gaps in her memory caused by alcohol that night, which is said to have made her hesitant to come forward when contacted.

Full BBC News report