ASHE SCHOW: Judge again dismisses lawsuit from man accused of sexual harrasment without evidence.
Judge Margaret Morrow, a U.S. district court judge, dismissed for the second time a lawsuit filed by Scott Hounsell, a former executive director of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County. This was Hounsell’s amended complaint filed earlier this year.
But in a move beneficial to Hounsell, Morrow did not dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice, allowing the former Republican staffer to amend his complaint once again, in part thanks to reporting on the case by the Washington Examiner.
Hounsell’s trouble began in 2012, when he participated in a bus caravan from Sacramento to Santa Clarita while he was still working for California State Assemblyman Cameron Smyth. Along for the trip were students from a local charter school who were learning about politics. One of those students was “Jane Doe” (her name was changed since she has not been charged with a crime), who would later accuse Hounsell of inappropriate behavior.
Doe claimed she sat next to Hounsell for about two hours during the return bus trip. One of her teachers disputed this claim, saying Doe had been kept away from Hounsell because she had remarked earlier she thought he was “cute.” Hounsell says he spent the return trip sitting next to friends and watching a movie.
Facebook messages between Doe and, allegedly, Hounsell sent nearly a year after the bus trip were discovered on Doe’s computer at school when she left the social media website open. Screenshots of the messages were taken by other students (though they appear to be screenshots of a phone, not of a computer) and sent to school administrators.
When school officials questioned Doe about the messages, she said that Hounsell had tickled her ribs on the bus trip but that the messages didn’t start until sometime after the trip. When she was questioned by the police weeks later, she claimed that Hounsell had tickled her leg while talking to another person and that sexually explicit Facebook messages began while they were both on the bus.
Doe insisted to police that she never planned to follow through with anything said in the messages and that she and Hounsell had never made plans to do so. Doe gave police access to her Facebook account to search for the messages. They found none.
Despite this, and the district attorney declining to file charges, the Los Angeles City Attorney picked up the case almost immediately and charged Hounsell with two counts of trying to seduce a minor. Before Hounsell was even aware of the charges, he says he and his former employer were inundated with media calls. Hounsell turned himself in downtown as media vans swarmed his home. He spent seven hours in jail.
Democratic prosecutors target political enemies and call it “justice.”