{"id":2545,"date":"2018-02-01T23:58:15","date_gmt":"2018-02-02T07:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=2545"},"modified":"2018-02-02T00:16:40","modified_gmt":"2018-02-02T08:16:40","slug":"texts-and-emails-reveal-behind-the-scenes-battles-as-ed-murray-tried-to-save-his-career-seattle-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=2545","title":{"rendered":"“Texts and emails reveal behind-the-scenes battles as Ed Murray tried to save his career”, The Seattle Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

By <\/span>Lewis Kamb\u00a0<\/i>and <\/span>Jim Brunner, February 1, 2018<\/p>\n

As accusations of sexual abuse of teens piled up against Seattle Mayor Ed Murray in 2017, he tried to fight back and rehabilitate his image. But a longtime confidant secretly pushed to \u201cget the abuser out of office.\u201d<\/p>\n

On a Sunday afternoon in July, Seattle City Councilmember M. Lorena Gonz\u00e1lez told Mayor Ed Murray she planned to call for his resignation the next day. Within hours, she received a surprising phone call.<\/p>\n

On the line was Jeff Reading, Murray\u2019s personal spokesman, who had helped the mayor aggressively combat a series of child sexual-abuse allegations over the spring and summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI expected it to be a call to dissuade me,\u201d Gonz\u00e1lez recalled. \u201cAnd he did not dissuade me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, Reading, a political consultant who had worked with Murray since his days as a Democratic state senator, advised Gonz\u00e1lez \u201cto be as bold as I could be,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The Seattle Times had just reported that an Oregon child-welfare investigator in 1984 concluded Murray had sexually abused his teenage foster son, Jeff Simpson.<\/a> Moreover, officials\u00a0had asserted Murray should never again serve as a foster parent.<\/p>\n

Behind Murray\u2019s back, Reading cited the story and urged Gonz\u00e1lez in a series of text messages to correct \u201can accident of history\u201d and get \u201cthe abuser out of office.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t that good for the city too?\u201d he wrote. \u201cTo not have to keep reading about how your mayor abused minors?\u201d<\/p>\n

Reading\u2019s messages \u2014 along with details from hundreds of pages of city emails, texts and other public records, and interviews with more than 20 people close to Murray\u2019s administration \u2014 illuminate previously unrevealed crisis points in a career built on borrowed time:<\/p>\n

A private meeting in 2012 to craft responses in the event sex-abuse allegations emerged. An accuser\u2019s angry nighttime messages sent to the mayor\u2019s office, prompting an alert to Murray\u2019s attorney. Concerns from a city aide about the mayor\u2019s efforts to involve city employees in his defense. And, during his final weeks in office, Murray\u2019s attempts to rehabilitate his personal image.<\/p>\n

Murray, who resigned in September, consistently has denied allegations by five men who say he sexually abused them as teenagers decades ago. He declined to be interviewed in person for this story, but answered some questions about Reading\u2019s actions and other revelations through his attorney, Steve Fogg.<\/p>\n

No other accusers?<\/h2>\n

In late summer 2012, Murray, then a powerful state senator eyeing a run for Seattle mayor, organized a meeting at his home on Capitol Hill. Joining him were Reading and Sandeep Kaushik, another longtime political consultant and lobbyist.<\/p>\n

They wrestled with a thorny problem: How would Murray deal with his former foster son\u2019s abuse claims should they crop up publicly during a mayoral campaign?<\/p>\n

For hours, they war-gamed potential questions from reporters. Murray offered forceful denials, noting Oregon authorities had declined to file criminal charges when Simpson first accused Murray of repeatedly raping him in the 1980s. He also referred to a stack of records he kept that impugned Simpson as a manipulative criminal.<\/p>\n

Murray pointed out that news media had opted not to run the story in 2008, after Simpson and another accuser, Lloyd Anderson, threatened a lawsuit and spoke with some reporters.<\/p>\n

The consultants left satisfied with Murray\u2019s explanations, and assurances he knew of no other potential accusers.<\/p>\n

Through Fogg, Murray said the strategizing \u201cwasn\u2019t a summit meeting on (Simpson\u2019s) allegations,\u201d but a general assessment of potential political attacks he could face during the campaign.<\/p>\n

Privately, Murray had feared similar allegations could jeopardize his career, his sister, Aileen Policros, said during an interview in September. At one point, when he was a state representative, Murray worried in a phone call to another sister that his cousin Joseph Dyer\u2019s decades-old claim that Murray had sexually molested him might surface, said Policros, who rejects all allegations against her brother.<\/p>\n

Murray, through Fogg, disputes having such worries, saying he hadn\u2019t heard about Dyer\u2019s allegations before September.<\/p>\n

Regardless, Dyer\u2019s claims \u2014 which other family members have said were known about for years \u2014 remained hidden as Murray ascended to the state Senate and became Democratic leader. By the close of 2013, Murray\u2019s political stock had risen even higher, after he defeated incumbent Mike McGinn to become Seattle\u2019s mayor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still have nightmares\u201d<\/h3>\n

\u201chey ED this is one of a few kids you molested,\u201d began the note\u00a0<\/a>from Lloyd Anderson, the man who had joined Simpson in a short-lived pursuit of a civil lawsuit eight years earlier.<\/p>\n

From a computer at his home in Florida, Anderson tapped out the angry message<\/a> through a constituent-comment form on the mayor\u2019s office website on June 2, 2015.<\/p>\n

Coming midway through Murray\u2019s term, the nighttime message sent alarms through the mayor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

Anderson had met Murray in the late 1970s at a Portland children\u2019s group home where Murray was a counselor. He claimed Murray later paid him for sex when Anderson was a teenager.<\/p>\n

In his message, Anderson asked if Murray remembered \u201cslapping me around and then making me perform oral sex on you?\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI want you to know that even after 20 years of marriage and two children and a halfway decent life I still have nightmares about what you did to me and jeff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three days later, Anderson fired off another note, saying his therapist had told him \u201cSeattle should know all about their mayor.\u201d He threatened to call reporters. \u201cEd I am glad that you have made a difference and have done a lot of good, but does the good outweigh the bad? Lets ask the media. God bless.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview last year, Anderson said he recalled sending the messages, but \u201cnever got anything back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murray had long denied Anderson\u2019s claims to his confidants.<\/p>\n

Chris Gregorich, Murray\u2019s chief of staff at the time, said the mayor\u2019s office didn\u2019t respond to Anderson, but notified Murray and his Portland attorney, Katherine Heekin.<\/p>\n

Murray \u201cdidn\u2019t take any action on that,\u201d Fogg added, because Anderson \u201cwasn\u2019t making a complaint that had anything to do with city business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite his threat to go public, Anderson said, he didn\u2019t speak with any reporters at the time.<\/p>\n

Accusations rise, political options shrink<\/h2>\n

Heading into 2017, Murray was riding high as mayor, having amassed political victories including a $15-an-hour city minimum wage and voter approval for major transportation and housing levies. He was gaining national attention as a leader in the liberal political resistance to President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

The path to re-election looked smooth.<\/p>\n

That all changed in April, when Delvonn Heckard, a recovering drug addict, filed a lawsuit accusing the mayor of raping and sexually abusing him decades earlier. The same day, The Times published similar accusations<\/a> by Anderson and Simpson.<\/p>\n

Murray vehemently denied the abuse claims and hired a prominent attorney to fight Heckard\u2019s lawsuit. Behind the scenes, he tapped political allies and pushed his city aides to help him mount a defense.<\/p>\n

Shortly after a fourth man came forward in May to allege similar abuse, Murray announced he would not seek re-election<\/a>, but vowed to finish his term.<\/p>\n

Doubt swirled about his accusers\u2019 motivations after Heckard withdrew his lawsuit in June, even though he promised to refile it once he completed drug treatment. Murray said he had been vindicated. He considered a late write-in campaign, but dropped the idea after commissioning a poll.<\/p>\n

He and his allies weighed how he could land work after leaving office.<\/p>\n

In a July text exchange with Murray, Seattle Department of Transportation Director Scott Kubly pitched a possibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have an act 2 idea,\u201d Kubly texted the mayor.<\/p>\n

\u201cInteresting,\u201d Murray responded.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you (should) replace Peter,\u201d Kubly wrote.<\/p>\n

Kubly was referring to Peter Rogoff<\/a>, executive director of Sound Transit. (A spokesman for Rogoff said last month Rogoff wasn\u2019t aware of Kubly\u2019s idea for Murray, nor does Rogoff have plans to leave the transit authority.)<\/p>\n

Murray\u2019s talk with Kubly about replacing Rogoff wasn\u2019t serious, Fogg said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was all just said in jest between (Murray) and Scott,\u201d Fogg said. \u201cEd hasn\u2019t taken any steps to pursue that idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0The text messages fly<\/h2>\n

The prospect of Murray landing any high-profile job after leaving office \u2014 or even serving out his term \u2014 took a major hit in mid-July.<\/p>\n

\u201cEd Murray abused foster son, investigator co<\/a>ncluded in 1984,\u201d<\/a> said the Sunday, July 16, Times front-page headline.<\/p>\n

After reading the story detailing the findings of the abuse probe in Oregon, Gonz\u00e1lez, the City Council member who\u2019d previously worked as Murray\u2019s legal counsel, felt she had to act.<\/p>\n

\u201cI represented victims of sexual assault and abuse in the past,\u201d she said in a recent interview, \u201cand if I were in the position of having an opportunity to talk to Mr. Simpson \u2014 if he came into my office and asked me to consider taking his case \u2014 would I take it? The answer to that question was yes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gonz\u00e1lez turned to political consultant Christian Sinderman for advice on making a public call for Murray\u2019s resignation. Sinderman, who also had worked for Murray and considered him a friend, recalled feeling \u201ccaught in the middle\u201d but nonetheless supported Gonz\u00e1lez\u2019s approach.<\/p>\n

When she informed Murray of her plans, Gonz\u00e1lez said the mayor told her he didn\u2019t deserve to be forced from office.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe began to talk about his suffering and how difficult that this has been for him and he just wanted to finish out his term on, you know, his terms,\u201d she recalled.<\/p>\n

Later, Gonz\u00e1lez said she was struggling with how to frame a statement when she received a call from Reading, a confidant of Murray\u2019s for more than a decade.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was \u2018a mistake in history\u2019 that needed to be corrected,\u201d Gonz\u00e1lez recalled Reading telling her.<\/p>\n

He pressed the case in a text: \u201cSomeone who has been disqualified to be a foster parent in the state of Oregon should be disqualified from being mayor in the city of Seattle \u2014 regardless of when that determination is brought to light \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cSeattle should not have a child abuser as mayor because of a clerical mishap, no matter how much time is left in his administration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reading wasn\u2019t done. The next day, he wrote to Gonz\u00e1lez: \u201cSeriously, who wants a mayor that CPS says sexually abused a minor and should never be put in that position again? It\u2019s astounding that Ed has had a 20 year career in elected office. These records should have disqualified him \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Reading wondered to Gonz\u00e1lez whether other City Council members would \u201ccome around\u201d to support her position on Murray\u2019s resignation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d she responded. \u201cEd worked Bruce [Harrell], Sally [Bagshaw] and Debora [Juarez] pretty hard yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Gonz\u00e1lez predicted Councilmembers Rob Johnson, Tim Burgess, Lisa Herbold and Kshama Sawant eventually would join her call for Murray to step down.<\/p>\n

Murray separately worried Gonz\u00e1lez\u2019s plea would win support.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think council might go there and I am already on the brink of financial disaster,\u201d he texted that Monday to former Deputy Mayor Andrea Riniker.<\/p>\n

His chief of staff, Mike Fong, quickly gauged support for Murray among other council members. Bagshaw assured him in a text that a \u201cresponse to Lorena is circulating.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we will get 5 votes,\u201d she added. \u201cI think you will like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you. This is very helpful and supportive,\u201d Fong texted back. \u201cIt will help put some brakes on what was starting to look like a runaway train.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShame on those who want a political witch hunt for their own political gain,\u201d Bagshaw responded.<\/p>\n

In the end, only Sawant joined Gonz\u00e1lez\u2019s call for resignation.<\/p>\n

Bagshaw did not respond to recent requests for comment about her text exchanges with Fong.<\/p>\n

Fong resigned as Murray\u2019s chief of staff about a month later, taking a job with King County Executive Dow Constantine before returning to City Hall late last year as a deputy to newly elected Mayor Jenny Durkan.<\/p>\n

Reading declined to comment for this story, except to say that he was no longer under professional contract to Murray\u2019s campaign at the time of his text exchanges.<\/p>\n

Fighting accusations, launching image rehab<\/h2>\n

In late July, Murray orchestrated a defense to hold onto his job. He solicited advice from former Seattle Mayor Charles Royer, who offered to write a letter co-signed by three other Seattle ex-mayors defending Murray against resignation talk.<\/p>\n

The mayor also asked some staff members to help him beat back the widening scandal, at one point requesting help researching Oregon laws related to foster parenting, according to a person familiar with the requests.<\/p>\n

With assistance from city aides, Ian Warner, the mayor\u2019s legal counsel, kept the mayor apprised of the media\u2019s requests for records related to the scandal. The mayor\u2019s executive assistant forwarded some of the reporters\u2019 requests to Murray\u2019s private attorney, Robert Sulkin.<\/p>\n

Murray\u2019s requests made at least one city employee uncomfortable, according to public records.<\/p>\n

In late July, Joe Mirabella, a spokesman for the city\u2019s economic-development office, sought advice from Susan Coskey, the city\u2019s human-resources director, emails show.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hesitate to put anything in writing but I need some clarity on the boundaries for some issues I\u2019ve been asked to help on which seem inappropriate to me,\u201d Mirabella wrote. \u201cI think you can imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coskey set up a meeting. Emails show she contacted Warner, but the city withheld contents of those messages when releasing public records requested by reporters, citing attorney-client privilege. No formal personnel investigation was launched.<\/p>\n

Mirabella, who still works for the city, declined to comment for this story.<\/p>\n

Through his attorney, Murray said he was careful to keep city work separate from personal tasks to help defend him against the allegations. \u201cThat wasn\u2019t his expectation or desire that city employees would work on (his defense) on city time,\u201d Fogg said.<\/p>\n

By late summer, Murray also was looking beyond the final months of his term, seeking to rebuild his tattered public image with the help of friends.<\/p>\n

Paul Anderson, CEO of the Seattle-based talent-management firm Workhouse Media<\/a>, sent a message to his friend Murray\u2019s personal email account describing a \u201cConfidential Strategic Process\u201d to get \u201ca personal branding process underway.\u201d<\/p>\n

They\u2019d start out with Murray completing a questionnaire, known as a Birkman Assessment, to determine his personal strengths and needs, followed by a meeting with a renowned local leadership coach, Beroz Ferrell, according to a string of emails released under public-disclosure laws.<\/p>\n

The emails show Murray undertaking the rebranding effort in late August and early September.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Murray last month claimed his work with Anderson took place only after he left the mayor\u2019s office. \u201cIt was just a 20-minute test,\u201d Fogg said. \u201cThat all happened after he resigned. Paul reached out to him through a mutual friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also aiding the effort was Martha Choe, a former chief administrative officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation who had served as a Seattle City Council member in the 1990s. Murray had worked for her as a council aide.<\/p>\n

In an email to Ferrell, Choe said she\u2019d \u201cdone work with Ed\u201d for more than a year based on feedback \u201crelated to his management and communications styles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murray quickly completed the questionnaire, and Ferrell and Choe worked with the mayor\u2019s official scheduler to set up a late-September meeting to go over the results.<\/p>\n

But Murray\u2019s plans changed Sept. 12.<\/p>\n

Late that morning, The Times informed Reading it planned to report that Dyer, Murray\u2019s cousin,<\/a> had alleged in interviews and a sworn affidavit that Murray molested him when he was 13, in the mid-1970s.<\/p>\n

Murray denied the allegations in a phone call with reporters and insisted he would not resign. After the call ended, Murray met with advisers in his office.<\/p>\n

Within two hours, the mayor announced he would step down the next day.<\/p>\n

Dyer\u2019s accusations, known among Murray\u2019s extended family for decades, shocked his longtime allies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think there was a single person who wasn\u2019t blindsided by that,\u201d Sinderman said. \u201cI guarantee you nobody knew.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Sept. 13, as the media gathered at City Hall for Council President Harrell\u2019s swearing-in as interim mayor, Murray\u2019s staff stayed mostly behind closed doors.<\/p>\n

Some reporters wondered: Would Murray make a statement? Was he even there?<\/p>\n

But the outgoing mayor wasn\u2019t at City Hall, and hadn\u2019t been all day.<\/p>\n

A few hours after the news broke about his cousin a day earlier, Seattle\u2019s 53rd mayor left the city with his husband. They headed to their beach home in Seabrook, on the Olympic Peninsula, where Murray spent his final day as the city\u2019s chief executive. Joining them at the beach was a Seattle police officer \u2014 one of two officers to be assigned over the next 10 nights at city expense to provide out-of-town security to the former mayor.<\/p>\n

The day after his resignation, Murray emailed his former executive assistant with a request:<\/p>\n

\u201cCould you pack all my Mayor note cards, pads, and pins?\u201d he asked. \u201cIt is a bit of a outgoing elected tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Seattle Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Lewis Kamb\u00a0and Jim Brunner, February 1, 2018 As accusations of sexual abuse of teens piled up against Seattle Mayor Ed Murray in 2017, he tried to fight back and rehabilitate his image. But a longtime confidant secretly pushed to \u201cget the abuser out of office.\u201d On a Sunday afternoon in July, Seattle City Councilmember […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2545"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2545"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2551,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2545\/revisions\/2551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}