Cawthorn has repeatedly denied that he has done anything wrong since the allegations first surfaced, and his office pointed to CNN in a September 2020 statement from the legislature in which he said, ‘I have never had anything sexually inappropriate in my life. not done.
The women alleging misconduct against the congressman are former classmates of his at Patrick Henry College in Virginia. Cawthorn briefly attended private Christian school in 2016 before dropping out, and at the time, the women said he was making undesirable progress on it.
“His MO was to take vulnerable women with him in the car and make progress,” Caitlin Coulter, one of Cawthorn’s former classmates, told CNN in an interview.
Coulter said she was summoned to something Cawthorn called a ‘fun ride’, where he asked about her purity and her sexual experiences. She says she felt something was down and closed the conversation.
“He got really upset. And he turned the car around and started going back to campus 70-80 miles per hour on these one-lane roads,” she said. “And it was – it was really scary.”
CNN spoke to two other women who went to school with Cawthorn, who both mentioned his invitations on the “fun” rides, saying that dismissing him would lead to more unwanted attention.
“There were a lot of sexual innuendos,” said Leah Petree, another former student at the school. “It got really uncomfortable to walk to and from class. He shouted, ‘Are you ready to take that fun ride today?’
“The plague continued. The attention was not what I wanted,” she said.
In response to the latest allegations, Cawthorn’s office issued a statement on Monday saying, “Western North Carolina voters responded to these allegations by giving Madison Cawthorn a 12-point victory over his opponent. Rep. Cawthorn is now engaged in the work he has done has been chosen to, among other things, help our economy recover from the pandemic, create jobs and opportunities, make health care more affordable, protect our natural environment and defend life and our second amendment rights. ‘
In addition to the claims of former Patrick Henry students, at least two women also claimed that Cawthorn kissed or touched them by force years ago, claiming he had earlier denied. He told CNN last year that he regretted the actions he had taken and apologized to anyone who had made him ‘feel uncomfortable’.
“Looking back, I wish I could have changed my actions. If I made someone feel uncomfortable in a situation, that’s never my goal,” he said.
But the allegations of Cawthorn’s time at university were widely known among alumni – so much so that more than 150 alumni signed a letter in October blasting the then-candidate for his behavior during his work at the school, which they wrote. “was characterized by gross misconduct towards our female counterparts.”
“During his short time in college, Cawthorn established a reputation for predatory behavior. His way of working was to invite unsuspecting women on ‘joy rides’ in his white Dodge Challenger. Cawthorn would take young women to remote areas, lock the doors and continues to make unwanted sexual advances, ‘reads the letter, noting that women at school are warned not to be alone with Cawthorn.
The former students urged voters in North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District to “seriously reevaluate Madison Cawthorn’s candidacy in light of who he really is,” and urged them to “reject him (at the ballot box).”
Cawthorn’s biography has also been scrutinized more sharply since the Post report. In a 2017 speech, Cawthorn described a car accident in 2014 in which he claimed that a friend, Bradley Ledford, left him for dead. But Ledford, who was driving the car, told the Post as part of their investigation that Cawthorn’s version of the crash was not true.
“The statement he made was false,” Ledford told the Post. “That’s not what happened at all. I pulled him out of the car the second time I could get out of the car.”
Cawthorn’s parents suppressed his story in their own version and Cawthorn later testified that he has no recollection of the accident.
Cawthorn also previously claimed on his campaign website that he had been nominated for the prestigious U.S. Navy Academy, but that his plans were derailed by the crash. However, in a 2017 release obtained by CNN, Cawthorn admitted that he was rejected from the academy before the crash.