A new report from Buzzfeed News details shocking allegations against Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) — that the long-time House Democrat may have retaliated against a former staffer who was planning to sue the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation over their lack of interest in a rape allegation.
In a lawsuit filed earlier this week, the former staffer — identified only as “Jane Doe” — accuses Jackson Lee of firing her because she intended to make public “an alleged rape by a former employee of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.”
“The woman, identified in court papers … alleges she was raped in October 2015, when she was a 19-year-old intern for the CBCF, by the foundation’s intern coordinator at the time, Damien Jones,” Buzzfeed reports. “The woman said she reported the alleged rape to police and told several people, including Rep. Terri Sewell, her former boss and a distant relative of her mother’s, but did not pursue legal action at the time.”
Years later, when Jane Doe was working as an aide to Jackson Lee, she says she decided to take action and sue the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation for ignoring her claims of sexual assault. Jane Doe then says she spoke about the matter to her boss, Jackson Lee’s Chief of Staff Glenn Rushing, and asked to speak to Lee directly.
Doe claims she never heard back from Rushing and that Lee never offered her a meeting. Two weeks later, she was fired. – READ MORE