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Councilman's Alleged Rape Victim Speaks
By
Dave Hogarty
Published Jul 15, 2007
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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By
Dave Hogarty
Published Jul 15, 2007
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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A Queens woman is telling police and the New York Post about an alleged sex attack she was the victim of that was supposedly perpetrated by Queens Councilman Dennis Gallagher. The Post even prints photographs of the woman's visible bruises. The 52-year-old victim was having dinner with a friend early one evening in a Queens restaurant named Danny Boy's, when they were approached by Gallagher and introduced by her friend. She claims that three hours later she was approached by the Councilman after leaving the Irish Pub and he was visibly drunk. The Post says that the victim was unwilling to discuss what exactly happened next under the advisement of prosecutors, but police are saying that she got into Gallagher's car and the pair drove to his office nearby.
Police searched Gallagher's office for evidence last week when the woman reported being attacked immediately after the incident, and she went to a hospital for treatment. Early reports said that investigators were leery because of the amount of alcohol allegedly consumed prior to the incident and witness accounts that it was not the first time the two had noticed each other at Danny Boy's. The unnamed woman, however, tells the Post that she is the victim of a brutal sexual attack: "I was beaten. I was threatened. I was terrorized." Councilman Gallagher, who is married, allegedly threatened the woman not to go to police.
Gallagher is cooperating with police and provided a DNA sample to investigators. His attorney says that he is innocent and compared his client to the Duke lacrosse players, who were falsely accused of raping a stripper at a party. Gallagher's accuser works at a Catholic church in Queens and cares for her 35-year-old mentally retarded son.
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