SACRAMENTO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0An attorney for Rep. Eric Swalwell, a leading Democratic candidate for California governor, on Thursday sent a cease and desist letter to an unknown individual demanding that they stop accusing the congressman of sexual assault.<\/p>\n
Swalwell\u2019s attorney Elias Dabaie of the law firm Dabaie Kelley, in Los Angeles, confirmed Friday that he sent the cease and desist letter, which tells the recipient that they could be sued for defamation. A copy of the letter was posted online by a social media influencer on Friday, and Dabaie confirmed it was authentic.<\/p>\n
Swalwell (D-Dublin) and his representatives earlier this week denied allegations made by social media influencers and repeated by political insiders in recent weeks that he behaved inappropriately toward young staffers and others.<\/p>\n
Dabaie\u2019s letter sent Thursday states that it \u201chas come to our attention that you have made false statements accusing Mr. Swalwell of sexual assault and non-consensual sexual encounters…\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe write to demand that you immediately and permanently cease and desist from continuing your wrongful conduct, including by stopping any further publication of such information or allowing it to be disseminated in any form, whether oral, written, electronic or otherwise,\u201d the letter stated.<\/p>\n
Dabaie confirmed to The Times that he sent the letter via text. He declined to say whether other cease and desist letters had been sent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can tell you that there have been multiple baseless allegations made against the Congressman and we are attacking them on all fronts,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Swalwell\u2019s campaign didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Cheyenne Hunt, a Laguna Hills attorney and executive director of a progressive advocacy group who has said she is helping organize a group of women who allege inappropriate behavior toward Swalwell, posted a screenshot of Dabaie\u2019s letter online on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the first page of the cease and desist letter from Swalwell\u2019s team \u2014 it has has been shared with permission from the recipient,\u201d she wrote on social media.<\/p>\n
The name of the individual who received the letter was redacted. <\/p>\n
Hunt told The Times on Friday that she was aware of two individuals who received cease and desist letters from Swalwell\u2019s team.<\/p>\n
Swalwell earlier in the week denied any inappropriate behavior, including allegations that his office required interns to sign nondisclosure agreements. \u201cIt\u2019s false,\u201d he told reporters. <\/p>\n
Swalwell said he never behaved inappropriately with female staff members or had a sexual relationship with a staff member or an intern.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SACRAMENTO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0An attorney for Rep. Eric Swalwell, a leading Democratic candidate for California governor, on Thursday sent a cease…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1052,115621,115625,115623,115626,2424,94287,48,52,51,1838,47,50,49,63,38105,427,2429,115624,115622,430],"class_list":["post-263597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-attorney","tag-cease","tag-cheyenne-hunt","tag-dabaie","tag-female-staff-member","tag-friday","tag-inappropriate-behavior","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-letter","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-swalwell","tag-team","tag-thursday","tag-unknown-individual","tag-unverified-sexual-assault-allegation","tag-week"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}