Despite consistent allegations of sexual harassment by seven female staffers, New York Assemblyman Dennis Gabryszak, an Erie County Democrat, was set to forge on with his work, battling the accusations against him. That work would have included the first two days of the new legislative session in Albany on Monday and Tuesday. Gabryszak’s travel plans were interrupted however, when a lawyer for the victims presented digital evidence which corroborated at least some of the claims.
Included in that material was a video of the Assemblyman “either miming or actually engaged in a sex act in a bathroom stall.”
Gabryszak issued a ‘retirement’ statement acknowledging there had been “mutual banter and exchanges that took place” that were inappropriate, but that he never intentionally harassed members of his staff.
The Times Union reports what led to Gabryszak quitting:
According to sources familiar with the case, Gabryszak’s plans were upended after the lawyer for several of the complainants sent the assemblyman’s attorney pieces of digital material referred to in the women’s accounts of Gabryszak’s alleged bad behavior. The batch included a video clip showing him either miming or actually engaged in a sex act in a bathroom stall, and text messages in which he made an obscene pun on the name of a Republican assemblywoman.
Gabryszak was accused of sending that video to at least two of the women making complaints. The obscene pun was directed toward Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, whom Gabryszak referred to as “Malliocockkiss.”
The Democrat has also been accused of offering an employee a $100,000/yr position if she moved to western New York to get away from her fiance, told one that “she aroused him sexually,” hung sexually charged photographs in his district office, and lamented the fact that if prostitutes were ever to unionize, he’d never be able to afford their services.
The Assemblyman has been married for 37 years and has two children.
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