A Latina lesbian member of the Salt Lake City Council has been accused by four people of sexual harassment while she mounts a campaign to win a U.S. congressional seat.
Three of the accusers are elected officials, and all said they were subjected to unwanted sexual advances from Eva Lopez Chavez.
‘We cannot excuse behavior — past or present — that trivializes or undermines the seriousness of sexual violence, assault, and harassment.’
Chavez said through an attorney that she was “shocked” by the allegations, denied one interaction had ever occurred, and claimed nothing inappropriate happened between three other accusers.
“She is prepared to address them in any forum. She stands ready to submit to a polygraph test regarding these various allegations if requested,” reads a statement from her attorney, Greg Skordas, to the Salt Lake Tribune.
Three of the accusers said they told others about the interactions at the time, and the Salt Lake Tribune said they confirmed the claims. All the alleged interactions occurred before Chavez was elected to the city council.
The accusers said they went public now partly because Chavez was running for office in the U.S. Congress and had castigated another politician over crude jokes he previously made about sexual battery and domestic violence.
“Our communities deserve leaders who take these issues seriously — not just in rhetoric but in conduct,” Chavez said in a statement about Democrat state Sen. Nate Blouin. “We cannot excuse behavior — past or present — that trivializes or undermines the seriousness of sexual violence, assault, and harassment.”
The accusers said her statement ignored her own behavior against women.
One of the accusers claimed that Chavez “pushed me back against a pillar so that my back was against the wall and told me, ‘The only reason I still f**k men is because a woman hasn’t shown me what I really want.'”
The Tribune described in detail the circumstances of the other accusations against Chavez.
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Lopez says in her biography that she is the eldest daughter of an immigrant family from Mexico and the first Mexican-American elected to the Salt Lake City Council.
She also is a proponent of abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to her profile on the X platform.
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