In the wake of the fallout of former U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell\u2019s alleged sexual misconduct and assault accusations both in New York and California, New York advocates are urging state lawmakers to act swiftly to pass legislation to discourage alleged abusers from using legal action to silence their victims.<\/p>\n
In a social media post on X on April 10, 2026, Swalwell denied the accusations. In a statement to CNN, Swalwell said, \u201cI will defend myself with the facts and where necessary bring legal action.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDefamation lawsuits or even the threat of them increases those obstacles,\u201d said Emily Miles, executive director of New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault. \u201cThe financial burden alone can be overwhelming. Often reaching six or seven figures.\u201d<\/p>\n
Advocates said the Swalwell situation felt like d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu when former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo threatened to sue women who accused him of sexual harassment.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir experiences underscore the urgent need for Albany to pass legislation to protect survivors from these legal threats,\u201d said Erica Vladimer, founding director of Harassment-Free New York.<\/p>\n
Currently on the books in the New York state Legislature is the Speak Your Truth Act. It\u2019s a proposal intended to discourage frivolous lawsuits against those who speak out.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe strategy of bury the accusation by burying the accuser is a strategy that is as old as sexual assault itself, but the use of civil defamation lawsuits specifically as a retaliatory tactic is on the rise,\u201d said Jane Manning, director of Women\u2019s Equal Justice, an organization that serves survivors of sexual assault.<\/p>\n
Manning, a former state sex crimes prosecutor, said the bill would do two things, including requiring an alleged abuser to prove an accuser knowingly made a false accusation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe second thing it would do is it would provide that in cases where a defamation lawsuit is brought and it is shown to have been meritless, malicious, retaliatory the person who was the accuser who was sued in that case can be compensated for their attorney fees by the person who brought the meritless lawsuit,\u201d said Manning.<\/p>\n
Advocates are hopeful the proposal will make it to the governor\u2019s desk this session.<\/p>\n
On the national level, in a rare statement the House Ethics Committee is asking anyone with a sexual misconduct complaint against a lawmaker to report it.<\/p>\n
According to the committee, it\u2019s initiated 20 investigations of lawmakers since 2017. It\u2019s unclear who was included in those investigations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the wake of the fallout of former U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell\u2019s alleged sexual misconduct and assault accusations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[109,116,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,5304,112,87,27],"class_list":{"0":"post-205534","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-app-local-state-politics","9":"tag-app-ny-state-of-politics","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-news","13":"tag-new-york-state","14":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","15":"tag-new-york-state-news","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-nicole-neuman","18":"tag-ny-state-of-politics","19":"tag-politics","20":"tag-top-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}