In the wake of the bombshell Harvey Weinstein scandal and the utter fallout in Hollywood, old alleged accounts of liberal heroes and sexual assault are resurfacing online.
One such horrifying alleged incident from “Liberal Lion” Teddy Kennedy, who had a reputation for bad boozy behavior, made its way across the internet on Friday.
Unfortunately, it is all too common for our powerful overlords to partake in abuses of power and deviant behavior, but, as noted in a GQ story from 2016, Terrible Teddy’s antics “stand out.” In 1985, for instance, drunken Kennedy allegedly threw himself on top of a waitress named Carla Gaviglio without her consent and began rubbing his genitals on her before another woman walked in the room to disrupt the attack.
Here’s how the alleged incident at Washington hot-spot La Brasserie went down, via GQ:
It is after midnight and Kennedy and Dodd are just finishing up a long dinner in a private room on the first floor of the restaurant’s annex. They are drunk. Their dates, two very young blondes, leave the table to go to the bathroom. (The dates are drunk too. “They’d always get their girls very, very drunk,” says a former Brasserie waitress.) Betty Loh, who served the foursome, also leaves the room. Raymond Campet, the co-owner of La Brasserie, tells Gaviglio the senators want to see her.
As Gaviglio enters the room, the six-foot-two, 225-plus-pound Kennedy grabs the five-foot-three, 103-pound waitress and throws her on the table. She lands on her back, scattering crystal, plates and cutlery and the lit candles. Several glasses and a crystal candlestick are broken. Kennedy then picks her up from the table and throws her on Dodd, who is sprawled in a chair. With Gaviglio on Dodd’s lap, Kennedy jumps on top and begins rubbing his genital area against hers, supporting his weight on the arms of the chair. As he is doing this, Loh enters the room. She and Gaviglio both scream, drawing one or two dishwashers. Startled, Kennedy leaps up. He laughs. Bruised, shaken and angry over what she considered a sexual assault, Gaviglio runs from the room. Kennedy, Dodd and their dates leave shortly thereafter, following a friendly argument between the senators over the check.
The alleged victim did not comment on the story directly, but told GQ the account “is full and accurate.”