2 Texas legislators accused of sexual misconduct toward employees

Daily Beast:

Lauren*, a Texas legislative intern, was standing underneath the bright blue-and-red neon sign of The Continental Club, a famed Austin bar frequented by schmoozing politicians, lobbyists, and reporters.

That week in May 2013 was filled to the brim with end-of-session (“sine die”) parties, and Lauren was with a group of other interns on South Congress when Democratic state Rep. Borris Miles pulled up.

According to Lauren, Miles leaned out of the carriage he was riding in and pulled out a large roll of money. He handed “maybe $500” to an intern and then looked at Lauren.

“You know how you have the roll of hundreds that you see on TV? It was like that,” Lauren told The Daily Beast.

“I said, ‘Hi Representative, how are you?’ Then he slowly looked me up and down, counted out more money, reached out his hand and said, ‘Bitch, you want to fuck with me tonight?’

“I said ‘No, thank you’ and physically stepped back,” Lauren recalled. “I didn’t want to be rude to him. I remember his intern pacifying him and saying, ‘It’s time to go.’

“Everyone was just shocked that he said that—that he cussed at me and that he was offering me money. It was outrageous,” she continued. “I just remember thinking, ‘I need to go, and I need to not be here anymore.’”

Chris*, a Democratic state representative who asked not to be named out of fear for his personal safety, confirmed Lauren’s contemporaneous account of her story to The Daily Beast. (Chris is in the same party as Miles, represents a district geographically removed from Miles’ district, works in a different chamber, and has never run against him.)

“At some point that night, I got a call or text message from [Lauren],” he recalled. “She said Borris Miles was at The Continental Club and that he had propositioned her. I didn’t quite understand the whole scenario until later, but I knew that she was not comfortable and [she] was not good.”

Chris and his chief of staff told The Daily Beast that they received the call and then went to pick up Lauren from The Continental Club. In separate interviews, all three of them said they spent rest of the night drinking together in a group.

Chris’ chief of staff said, “I remember we asked her whether she wanted us to do anything about it, but at the time she’d just said, ‘No, let’s get out of here. I’m not going to see him again.’”
...
Now a state senator, the mustachioed Miles is regarded as a powerful force in Texas. Past birthday and fundraising events for him have been hosted by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Rep. Al Green (D-TX), and a number of high-ranking Texas legislative officials.

The insurance business owner and real estate developer is a native Houstonian and a former law enforcement officer. He owns a cigar bar in Houston, and he suffers from sickle cell anemia. (Sickle cell anemia has a median life expectancy of 42 years for men in the U.S.)
...
In the other episode, Miles allegedly crashed a party at the St. Regis Hotel, forcibly kissed a woman, and planted a Godfather-style “kiss of death” on the cheeks of a local businessman while brandishing his weapon. The man hosting the party pressed charges after Miles allegedly said, “You don’t know what I’m capable of doing.”

Miles’ defense attorney, Rusty Hardin, claimed that members of Houston’s African-American business community were orchestrating a campaign to remove Miles from office and ruin his insurance business by lying about what happened.

Miles was acquitted on both counts at a January 2009 trial.
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Four years before her run-in with Miles, Margaret says she was walking up a set of stairs in the Capitol wearing a polka-dot shift dress with a short-sleeved jacket. She was walking toward Rep. Senfronia Thompson’s office when she passed then-House member Carlos Uresti. The Democrat stopped her and allegedly said, “I can tell you’re wearing a thong, is it polka-dots to match your dress?”
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There is more.

Both Miles and Uresti are Democrats.  I will be interested to see if either finds this story embarrassing.