Sexual assault allegations against Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax surfaced weeks ago, but both Fairfax and his accusers appeared to go silent on the matter. In the case of Fairfax, the self-imposed vow of silence was likely designed to allow the incident to pass out of mind — but this week, his accusers will give their first public interview to CBS This Morning.
The Virgininian-Pilot reports that both “Vanessa Tyson and Meredith Watson — who have alleged that Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax assaulted them years ago” granted interviews to CBS News, bringing renewed attention to the matter.
“I think the Virginia people, the voters of Virginia, have a right to know both my story and Meredith’s story,” Tyson is shown saying in a clip of the interview with CBS’s Gayle King. “I think there should be a public hearing.”
“In my ideal world, I’d want him to resign,” Tyson concludes.
Tyson alleges that Fairfax assaulted her while the pair were working at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts, according to TIME Magazine, which covered the story when Tyson first came forward with her allegations in February.
“While they were in [a hotel room at the convention],” Tyson alleged in a statement released through her attorneys last month, “Fairfax caught her off guard by kissing her. While the kiss was consensual, Tyson said, what happened next was not. She said Fairfax unbuckled his pants, grabbed her head and forced her to perform oral sex on him.”
Fairfax told media, at the time, that he believed the encounter was consenusal.
“At no time did she express to me any discomfort or concern about our interactions, neither during that encounter, nor during the months that followed it, when she stayed in touch with me, nor the past fifteen years. She in no way indicated that anything that had happened between us made her uncomfortable,” he said in a statement.
Meredith Watson “came forward after Tyson and accused the lieutenant governor of raping her in 2000 when both were studying at Duke University,” according to the Virginian-Pilot.
Fairfax denies that allegation as well, and, according to CNN, took two separate polygraph tests in order to prove he was not lying. The Hill also reports that Fairfax has asked the FBI to look into both accusers.
Virginia’s Democratic leadership faced something of a meltdown in early February following a vote in the Virginia legislature over legalizing third trimester abortion. Virginia Governor Ralph Northam was alleged to have posed in a racially charged photo in medical school, and pictures surfaced of Northam and a friend dressed up for a costume party, one as a member of the Ku Klux Klan and one in minstrel-style blackface. Fairfax was subsequently accused of sexual assault. The state’s Democratic attorney general was also revealed to have posed in blackface, though during high school.
Northam refused to resign, and after a public apology and a “listening tour,” Northam remains in office. No other Democratic leaders have left office, despite the severity of the accusations.
The allegations against Fairfax were never publicly investigated. Tyson reportedly tells Gayle King in her interview that she will happily submit to an interview in front of the Virginia General Assembly.