A second former employee of Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., accused the congressman of touching her inappropriately and sexually harassing her nearly 10 years ago, the latest in allegations of sexual misconduct against the 88-year-old that have arisen in the last week.
Deanna Maher told the Detroit News Conyers sexually harassed her three times during her years working with the congressman from 1997 to 2005.
Conyers first allegedly sexually harassed her not long after she was hired in September 1997, Maher said. The congressman offered to share a hotel room with her and made sexual advances toward her.
“I didn’t have a room, and he had me put in his hotel suite,” Maher, 77, told the Detroit News.
The former staffer said she refused his offer.
In another instance, Maher said Conyers touched her inappropriately while he was driving to Detroit Metropolitan Airport in the spring of 1998.
“He was trying to feel me up with his right hand,” Maher said. “I kept pushing his hand away. Then he put his hand on my neck and started trying to tickle me. We were on I-75, and he was driving erratically. I was saved by the bell because we got pulled over by the police for the way he was driving.”
The third incident occurred in 1999, when Maher said Conyers “put his hand up my dress and whispered in my ear, ‘I didn’t know you had such great legs’” during a meeting in Highland Park, Mich.
Arnold Reed, Conyers’ lawyer, said the congressman denies any wrongdoing and questioned the details of Maher’s allegations.
“At best, they are uncorroborated. At worst, they’re just not believable,” Reed told the Detroit News. “When you consider that they’re flying down I-75, he is driving and has time to do all of that, they get pulled over by a police officer, and she doesn’t tell him what’s going on?”
“Any female or male that comes forward and says anybody harasses them, that is serious,” he continued. “Those things are not to be taken lightly. But we have to be able to at least have some corroboration if we’re going to be saying my client did something wrong.”
Maher did tell a former reporter with the Detroit Free Press and a Detroit News reporter about her interactions with Conyers, though she didn’t want to speak on-the-record at the time of those discussions, the Detroit News reported.
Maher is the second former employee of Conyers to speak publicly about allegations of sexual harassment against the congressman. Melanie Sloan, who served as minority counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, said the congressman harassed her when she worked for him in the 1990s.
Allegations against Conyers first came to light last week after BuzzFeed published a report stating Conyers settled a wrongful dismissal case with a former female staffer in 2015. The staffer said she was fired for rejecting the congressman’s sexual advances.
The House Committee on Ethics has opened an investigation into the allegations of sexual harassment, and Conyers has stepped down as the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.
