The woman accusing Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of sexual assault went on the record for this first time Wednesday describing how the alleged incident transitioned from being a consensual encounter to sexual assault.
Vanessa Tyson alleges Fairfax forced her to perform oral sex when the two had a sexual encounter in his hotel room during the Democratic National Convention in Boston in 2004.
Fairfax, a 39-year-old Democrat, has said the sexual encounter they had was “100 percent” consensual.
In her statement Wednesday, Tyson, a professor from California, said, “What began as consensual kissing quickly turned into a sexual assault.”
“Mr. Fairfax put his hand behind my neck and forcefully pushed my head towards his crotch,” she continued. “Only then did I realize that he had unbuckled his belt, unzipped his pants, and taken out his penis. He then forced his penis into my mouth. Utterly shocked and terrified, I tried to move my head away, but could not because his hand was holding down my neck and he was much stronger than me. As I cried and gagged, Mr. Fairfax forced me to perform oral sex on him.”
Tyson claimed she could in no way see how Fairfax could view the interaction as consensual.
Tyson said she felt compelled to share her story again when she saw Fairfax could soon become the next governor of Virginia as he is next in line to replace embattled Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, who is facing a scandal stemming from a racist photo in his medical school yearbook.
After Tyson’s allegation was first posted to Twitter, Fairfax’s chief of staff and communications director released a statement Monday, just before 3 a.m., maintaining his innocence from the allegations. The statement claimed Tyson went to the Washington Post with the same story last year, but the outlet found no corroborating evidence and several inconsistencies in her story.
Speaking to reporters afterwards on Monday, Fairfax guessed he might the subject of a “smear” and said there were no text messages or emails between him and Tyson.
In her statement, Tyson said she tried to share her story with the Washington Post in the past, but the Post said it did not go forward with the story because it could not find enough evidence to corroborate either Tyson’s or Fairfax’s account of the events.
She also took shots at Fairfax’s statements after the Post said Tyson did not present any inconsistencies in her story as Fairfax’s office had claimed.
“Mr. Fairfax’s suggestion that The Washington Post found me not to be credible was deceitful, offensive, and profoundly upsetting,” Tyson said. “He has continued a smear campaign by pointing reporters to a 2007 educational video in which I talked about being the victim of incest and molestation. In that video I did not talk about being assaulted by Mr. Fairfax. This, of course, is not proof that he did not assault me. His reliance on this video to say the opposite is despicable and an offense to sexual assault survi~’ors everywhere.”
The statement from Tyson came from the law firm she recently hired — Katz, Marshall and Banks, which is the same Washington, D.C.-based firm that represented Christine Blasey Ford in her allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
