(ANTIMEDIA) — Seattle Mayor Ed Murray announced his resignation yesterday amid a shocking child sex-abuse scandal. The decision came just hours after a Seattle Times report revealed the identity and details of the fifth accusation of child sex abuse against Murray. In the report, Joseph Dyer, Murray’s younger cousin, detailed his experience of being molested by Murray at the age of 13. Since April, four other men have publicly come forward with similar allegations of child sex abuse by the longtime Seattle politician.
Upon hearing the news of Murray’s resignation, Jeff Simpson, one of Murray’s former foster sons who also accused the former mayor of molesting him at the age of 13, shared his reaction: “I couldn’t believe it. I was like, you know what? God is good. When you’re doing the right thing and don’t quit before the miracle, God takes care of stuff. It’s just on his time.”
“I mean, at least the public knows that everything I was saying was the truth, right?” said Delvonn Heckard, who sued Murray earlier this year over alleged abuse. “I’m not just some crackhead, some criminal, some street kid, I was telling the truth … It’s not just me, or one or two guys. It’s his own cousin, too.”
Murray’s third accuser, Lloyd Anderson, said of the resignation: “I feel victory, but saddened that it required another victim to come forward for him to resign. I wonder how many other victims are out there.” Anderson claims he received payment from Murray for sex as a teenager in Portland back in the 1980s.
Murray stands by his attorney’s previous statement that all child sex abuse allegations lodged against him are simply not true. For five months, Murray rejected calls for his resignation until yesterday’s allegations moved him to act.
“While the allegations against me are not true, it is important that my personal issues do not affect the ability of our City government to conduct the public’s business,” Murray said in a statement. Murray claims the accusations against him are part of a conspiracy targeting him for his progressive views and his role as a champion for the LGBT community as Seattle’s first openly gay mayor.
Seattle’s temporary mayor, City Council President Bruce Harrell, said in a statement that “these accusations are unspeakable and require the utmost attention from our legal and social service system no matter how long ago they might have occurred.”
City Councilmember Kshama Sawant blasted her colleagues for not acting sooner: “Unfortunately, the majority of the City Council failed to show any such leadership,” Sawant said. “Establishment politicians and political operatives do not show courage on an ordinary basis, so this is yet another example,” she added.
Joseph Dyer claims Ed Murray forced him into having sex in the 1970s when the two shared a bedroom at Dyer’s mother’s home. According to Dyer, the molestation stopped only after another boy in a Catholic group home where Murray once worked accused him of sexual abuse.
An election to select a new mayor for the city of Seattle was already scheduled to take place this November.
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