A man who accused former Seattle Mayor Ed Murray of sex abuse claims the City of Seattle sided with the mayor and stood by as Murray “slandered his accusers.”
An Oregon man has filed a claim for damages accusing former Mayor Ed Murray and the City of Seattle of defamation and negligence.
An attorney for Jeff Simpson, 50, of Gladstone, Ore., claimed he was “the survivor of horrific sexual abuse” and that “the City of Seattle was never vested in the truth about Ed Murray coming out to the public.”
“When the accusations became public, the City of Seattle chose publicly to side with Mr. Murray and sat back and watched as Mr. Murray and his lawyer and spokesperson defamed, disparaged, and slandered his accusers," calling them "liars, mentally unstable, drug users, untrustworthy, criminals, homophobes, politically motivated, and hateful."
Simpson’s attorney, Cheryl Snow, a former King County senior deputy prosecutor, pointed out that the city never reported the accusation to a law enforcement agency, never conducted an internal investigation, and never attempted to speak with the victims.
Simpson said the abuse began when he was 13, when he was a foster child of Murray’s and went on for the next four years. He said Murray would pay him for sex – money Simpson would use to buy drugs. He later did time in prison, always carrying with him what happened.
WATCH: Jeff Simpson describes alleged sex abuse (interview originally published April 2017)
Murray has repeatedly denied the allegations. Yet after his own cousin, a fifth accuser, stepped forward, Murray resigned from office in September 2017.
The Seattle Times reported that Oregon’s Department of Human Services unearthed old records showing a child-welfare investigator determined that Murray had sexually abused Simpson. State officials concluded that “under no circumstances” should Murray serve as a foster parent in the future.
Another accuser, Delvonn Heckard, 47, settled his lawsuit against the city for $150,000 and agreed to drop his lawsuit against Murray in December. Heckard died last week in an Auburn motel. The King County Medical Examiner said the cause and manner of death are pending.
Simpson’s claim includes a plaintiff’s witness list that names Murray’s husband Michael Shiosaki, Murray’s spokesperson Jeff Reading, and councilmembers Sally Bagshaw and Lorena Gonzalez.
Snow asserts that damages and fees could “collectively exceed $1 million.”
