Sexual-assault complaint against prosecutor rejected
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A private complaint by a woman who claims she was sexually assaulted by a county prosecutor in his office after hours has been rejected by the state attorney general for lack of evidence.
Bedford County District Attorney William Higgins, who is married, has acknowledged having consensual sex at his courthouse office after a Republican fundraiser in July, but he denies raping or assaulting the woman.
Bedford County is about 85 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
Attorney General’s spokesman Kevin Harley said the woman’s complaint, filed Aug. 27, was not approved because of a “lack of physical evidence,” a “lack of credible specificity” and “significant evidence which contradicts the allegations” in the complaint, filed more than a month after the encounter.
Harley wouldn’t detail the contradictory evidence or what investigators found to be incredible because she still has the right to appeal the decision to a Common Pleas judge. The judge could order the criminal charges to go forward if the woman can provide probable cause.
The woman’s attorney, Thomas Crawford of Pittsburgh, did not immediately return a call for comment Friday but has said the woman plans to appeal.
Higgins said he was relieved but not surprised by the decision and claims the woman was lying to justify her behavior to her family.
“I was confident that the system works and the truth would come out,” Higgins said. “It was unfortunate that rather than accept responsibility for our terrible behavior she sought to make these baseless allegations.”
Higgins, 34, who was re-elected to a second four-year term in 2007, said the criminal charges were a distraction from his job but, more importantly, a distraction from repairing the relationship with his wife and family.
“This decision certainly doesn’t erase what I did,” Higgins said. “I don’t want to make this seem like a ’victory’ here because it’s not. I’m still focused on the fact that I did something terribly wrong to my family.”
Higgins said state prosecutors didn’t tell him what prompted the decision.
“I don’t know what those specifics were, but the evidence that’s been put out publicly clearly contradicts her story. She claimed to be so intoxicated she didn’t know what she was doing, yet she drove herself here and drove home. She took a phone call from her husband while she was here, answered the phone call and spoke to him,” Higgins said.
Asked if her husband’s phone call prompted the woman to leave his office, Higgins said no.
Harley wouldn’t comment on those details but confirmed the woman is married with children.
“Typically when we close out a case, we don’t get into the details. We just talk in broad strokes” so as not to compromise the appeal rights of those who make private complaints, Harley said.