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Pennsylvania Woman Files Complaint Against DA Over Office Tryst

Associated Press
Published | Updated

PITTSBURGH – A woman who had an after-hours tryst with a county prosecutor in his office has filed a private criminal complaint in which she says the sex wasn't consensual, but the district attorney called the allegations untrue.

Bedford County District Attorney William Higgins said he committed no crime and called the complaint personally and politically motivated.

The Associated Press was not immediately able to obtain a copy of the complaint Tuesday. Kevin Harley, a spokesman for the state attorney general's office said the woman alleges "unwanted sexual contact."

"The woman is alleging the sex wasn't consensual," Harley said, adding he doesn't know what specific crime is being alleged because the office hasn't received the paperwork.

Higgins, who is married and has been district attorney since 2004, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the accusations are "absolutely untrue" and said he would fully cooperate with the investigation.

Higgins, 34, admitted in a television interview that aired July 31 that he had extramarital sex with the woman in his courthouse office earlier that month. He said he had met the woman at a fundraiser and, at the end of the night, they returned to his office and had sex, the television station reported.

Higgins said the encounter was consensual and said, "I think the facts will bear that out."

"She drove to my office 15 minutes after I arrived, on her own, and she drove away on her own," Higgins said. "She had called me and asked if she could come by."

Bedford District Judge H. Cyril Bingham Jr. issued a two-paragraph statement saying his office forwarded the complaint, which the woman filed Friday, to Higgins' first assistant, who relayed it to the state attorney general's office because the district attorney is the accused.

The attorney general will assign a prosecutor and investigating agents once it receives the complaint, probably later this week, Harley said.

"Anybody can walk into a district justice office and file a private criminal complaint about any issue. That's why it has to be investigated," Harley said. "In some respects, it's the equivalent of going into a police department and making an allegation."