That brings the count to SEVEN. According to KPBS, there are four “prominent” women who have come forward this evening alleging harassment against ‘filthy Filner.’
“Sharon Bernie-Cloward, president of the San Diego Port Tenants Association, said then-Congressman Filner approached her at a National City event in 2010, told her she was beautiful and that he ‘wanted to date me’ after his re-election.” Another event at the Town and Country Convention Center took place in 2012 during Filner’s reelection campaign. “He came up to me after the event was over. I was talking with friends and he gave me a hug. And then he touched me, actually groped me on my backside inappropriately,” Bernie-Cloward said. I was left there startled and fearful. In fact, I actually had someone walk me to my car that night.”
Patti Roscoe, “a prominent businesswoman in San Diego’s tourism and hospitality industry,” said she knew Filner all the way back from his City Council days. “And on numerous occasions, he put in me what I guess now is the famous headlock; and I felt fearful, even as well as I knew him, because it was an invasion into my space,” Roscoe said. “And he would come in and try to kiss me on the lips and I’d have to squirm to get away. And just as recently as a few months ago this happened. I turned and he just slobbered down my chin.” She went on to describe “And I was so violated and so offended. It’s just such a terrible invasion.”
Veronica “Ronne” Froman, who was retired from the navy in 2001 with the rank of rear admiral, tells a disturbing account:
“a couple years ago (at) Filner’s congressional office,” he blocked the doorway after everyone had left.
“He stopped me and he got very close to me. And he ran his finger up my cheek like this and he whispered to me, ‘Do you have a man in your life?‘ ” Froman said. “I jumped back. I was very, very startled. And I said, ‘Yes, I have a man in my life.’
“And he said, ‘who?’ And I said, ‘Linden Blue.’ He says, ‘Oh, of the Blues Brothers?’ And he says, ‘Maybe we can get together some time and have lunch and he can support me for mayor.’
“I was really rattled, I got in the car with the two guys I was working with and I told them never to leave me alone in a room with Bob Filner again.”
The fourth woman, Joyce Gattas is dean of the College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts at SDSU.
She described to KPBS a series of “interactions with Bob where he’s held me too tight, a kiss on the cheek which is inappropriate, hands on the knee that last too long.”
Gattas, who helped craft the university’s sexual-harassment policy, said she has often seen Filner make “sexual comments to others. And I’ve seen the interactions with others when they cringe. I’ve experienced his sexual innuendos with me at various events that again, have left me in that strange feeling of: This is inappropriate, this is unwanted and this shouldn’t be happening.”
The San Diego Democrats met today discuss what to do about the Mayor, who is refusing to leave office.
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