Posted on 04/30/2005 8:29:50 PM PDT by Born Conservative
Cynthia Ore, 29, who was receiving a back rub from him at the time, has retracted the claim.
Police responded to the Washington, D.C., apartment of U.S. Rep. Don Sherwood seven months ago after a woman who was visiting called 911 and reported he choked her.
Sherwood, R-Tunkhannock, says he was falsely accused. He pointed to a police report that stated the woman backed off the claim. He also said he’s the victim of a political smear.
No one has been charged in what the police termed a domestic incident.
“Both parties have left out significant information or are not willing to discuss in detail what actually happened,” Washington Metropolitan Police stated in the incident report.
Cynthia Ore, 29, of Rockville, Md. locked herself in a bathroom and called 911 from her cell phone on the afternoon of Sept. 15, saying Sherwood “choked her for no apparent reason” while giving her a backrub in his apartment on D Street, according to a police report.
Sherwood, 64, told police he was giving Ore a backrub when she “jumped up” and ran to the bathroom, the report stated.
Police in Washington said they saw no visible injuries on Ore’s neck and had trouble getting to the bottom of the story.
“Based on interviews with both parties and no physical evidence of injury to (Ore), there was no probable cause to make an arrest or reasonable cause to believe (Ore) was assaulted,” the incident report stated.
After telling police she was assaulted, Ore “changed the subject” and said nothing happened, “we were just sitting in the living room sipping tea,” police said, noting that Ore “did not seem to be of sound mind.”
Ore, in a phone interview Thursday, said her friends and workers at a woman’s resource center have encouraged her to consider some sort of legal action against Sherwood. “Thinking of that day I could cry and cry.”
Ore said she was supposed to meet Sherwood at the apartment that day but was late. That upset Sherwood, she said.
Sherwood disputes her version of what happened.
Sherwood, who is married, called Ore “an acquaintance” but wouldn’t say why she was in his apartment.
“Did I call her there, no. You meet lots of people in Washington and I had known her casually,” Sherwood said. He could not recall how long ago they met.
“She made an allegation against me which, I say, is absolutely not true. The police investigated the allegation and agreed,” Sherwood said.
“People can say what they want to say. It’s a political smear. I’ve never asked any of my opponents to discuss their personal lives and I’m not going to discuss mine.”
Limited information about the incident was faxed to the Times Leader by Veronica Hannevig of Simpson, Pa. She ran against Sherwood in the November 2004 election for the 10th Congressional District. The Metropolitan Police Department in Washington verified the incident and provided a copy of the report.
Hannevig, of the Constitution Party, said someone from Washington mailed her the first page of the incident report on April 26 in an envelope with no return address.
Sherwood said he found it strange that only part of the report was faxed to the media and that a complete report shows police did not plan to file charges.
Ore said she met Sherwood at a Young Republicans meeting in 1999 and has had an ongoing relationship with him. Sherwood would not get into specifics about the relationship.
Ore also said she has seen and spoken with Sherwood since the incident.
Sherwood said she has not come to see him at the apartment since the incident. He said he did run into her “on the street” once after the incident, but it was not a planned meeting.
Ore said she works for her family, which owns restaurants and supermarkets in Maryland. She did not say which businesses the family owns.
Sherwood represents the 10th Congressional District, which covers all of Bradford, Montour, Northumberland, Pike, Snyder, Sullivan Susquehanna, Union, Wayne and Wyoming counties and parts of Lackawanna and Luzerne. Municipalities Sherwood covers in Luzerne County are: Dallas, Exeter, Fairmount, Franklin, Kingston, Lake, Lehman, and Ross townships and the boroughs of Dallas, Forty Fort, Harveys Lake, Kingston, Swoyersville wards one and two, West Wyoming and Wyoming.
But I still don't understand how a woman in her twenties who visits a 64-year-old married man in his apartment, and allows him to rub her back, could be anything other than a whore.
-ccm
It's pronounced 'or A'
ping
Ping
http://fredericksburg.com/News/apmethods/apstory?urlfeed=D89RE6380.xml
Woman Says Congressman From Pa. Choked Her
The Associated Press
WILKES-BARRE, Pa.
A woman alleged in a call to police last fall that U.S. Rep. Don Sherwood had started choking her while giving her a back rub at his Washington apartment, but no charges were filed, according to a published report.
The encounter between Sherwood, 64, a four-term Republican congressman, and Cynthia Ore, 29, of Rockville, Md., occurred on the afternoon of Sept. 15, according to a copy of a Washington Metropolitan Police incident report obtained by the Wilkes-Barre (Pa.) Times Leader.
"Based on interviews with both parties and no physical evidence of injury to (Ore), there was no probable cause to make an arrest or reasonable cause to believe (Ore) was assaulted," the incident report stated.
But police also said in the report they did not receive a full account of events.
"Both parties have left out significant information or are not willing to discuss in detail what actually happened," the incident report said.
Sherwood, who is married, told the Times Leader in a story published Saturday that Ore was "an acquaintance" but wouldn't elaborate on why she was in his apartment. Ore told the newspaper the two met in 1999 at a Young Republicans meeting but wouldn't go into specifics about their relationship.
"She made an allegation against me which, I say, is absolutely not true," Sherwood said. "The police investigated the allegation and agreed."
According to the police report, Ore called 911 on her cell phone from Sherwood's bathroom and reported that Sherwood had "choked her for no apparent reason." Both parties said he was giving her a back rub, but he said she "jumped up" and ran to the bathroom during it.
Police said Ore changed her account during an interview with police, saying nothing had happened, but added that the woman "did not seem to be of sound mind," the report said.
"Thinking of that day I could cry and cry," Ore told the Times Leader.
Sherwood, whose 10th district encompasses parts of northeast and central Pennsylvania, said he's the victim of a political smear.
The Times Leader said it first learned about the incident from a fax it received from a woman who ran against Sherwood last fall. The newspaper said the woman provided only limited information, and that it got the rest when it obtained a full report from Washington police.
Sherwood's office told The Associated Press early Monday night that no one would be available until Tuesday to comment on the report, and a message left at Ore's home was not returned.
Washington police said a copy of the police report could not be made available Monday night.
Thanks for posting. I wonder how far this story is going to go....
Exactly !!!
I just happened to notice it on the Fredericksburg site and did a search on FR. It probably has "legs," as they say. My first thought was that it had a Chandra Levy quality to it. The dems will keep digging if they think a seat can be picked up in PA.
Posted on Tue, May. 03, 2005
Republicans rallying to help Sherwood get past report EXCLUSIVE
Local political observer advises facing issue linked to D.C. ‘domestic incident.’
By BRETT MARCY bmarcy@leader.net
Republicans are circling the wagons around U.S. Rep. Don Sherwood, R-Tunkhannock, in the wake of an incident involving a 29-year-old woman in his Washington, D.C., apartment last September.
“The only thing you have in life is your reputation,” said Marge Matisko, an activist with the Luzerne County Republican Party. “Don Sherwood has always been very well-respected, and he always valued that. This has hurt him personally and professionally, and that’s a shame.”
snip
The Times Leader obtained the full report from the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, which verified the incident.
According to the report:
Police responded to a 911 call on Sept. 15 from Cynthia Ore, 29, of Rockville, Md. She locked herself in a bathroom in Sherwood’s D Street apartment and told operators that Sherwood “choked her for no apparent reason” while giving her a backrub.
Sherwood, 64, told police he was giving Ore a backrub when she “jumped up” and ran to the bathroom.
Police said they saw no visible injuries on Ore’s neck, and Ore later backed off her story when questioned by police.
http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/11549677.htm
http://www3.capwiz.com/c-span/bio/?id=509&lvl=C&chamber=H
I wonder what Carol thinks about all this?
I wonder when she found out about all of this?
She could be a lobbyist. Or in the employ thereof.
I'm curios as to what part of the above mentioned events tipped the scale in categorizing her as a whore?
Is it the age difference?
Is it the fact that she is single and he is married?
Is it because she visited him in his apartment?
Is it because he gave her a back rub?
Exactly at what point does a single female acquaintance of a man her senior become a whore in your viewpoint?
I think we shouldn't rush to judgment on Don Sherwood.
I've only met Don Sherwood once, but he made a very good impression on me. He came to my uncle's funeral. My uncle was a well-respected man, and the line for the viewing was at least two hours long. Sherwood got in his line with his wife, and didn't let anyone know he was a Congressman, and patiently waited along with everyone else. I talked to him a bit as he was leaving, and he struck me as a decent man with a good marriage and a humility that is rare in politicians.
He had been a good friend to my uncle for many years. My uncle was an excellent judge of character and he would have been able to tell if Sherwood was a phony.
I expect a lot of people will be rallying around Sherwood in the next few days. He's a man with a lot of friends in his District. We can make accusations of cronyism, pork, and patronage, but the fact is that an awful lot of people think of Sherwood as a decent man who was a respected business owner long before he went into politics.
I suggest we wait for the full story to come out before we start throwing around accusations.
Like I said, a whore.
-ccm
-ccm
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