XPost: hawaii.education, monterey.general, sbay.general   
   XPost: alt.politics.obama   
   From: amused@glaad.org   
      
   Joseph Dyer, a younger cousin of Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, says   
   he wants Murray punished, alleging he repeatedly molested him in   
   the 1970s in New York. “I have had enough ... Something has got   
   to be done.” Murray denies abusing Dyer, blaming a yearslong   
   family rift.   
      
   By Jim Brunner and Lewis Kamb   
   Seattle Times staff reporters   
      
   A younger cousin of Seattle Mayor Ed Murray has become the fifth   
   man to accuse the mayor of sexual abuse, saying Murray   
   repeatedly molested him as a teenager in the 1970s.   
      
   Murray announced his resignation Tuesday in the wake of the new   
   allegations.   
      
   Joseph Dyer, 54, a dialysis technician and Air Force veteran,   
   says he was 13 when Murray forced him into sex for about a year   
   while the two shared a bedroom in Dyer’s mother’s home in the   
   Long Island town of Medford, New York.   
      
   “There would be times when I would fake sleeping because I   
   didn’t want him touching me,” Dyer, a married father who now   
   lives in another state, recalled during an interview with The   
   Seattle Times.   
      
   “And that’s when he would molest me. And my mother would be   
   right there in the house, she’d be in the living room … watching   
   TV, at that time it was probably “M*A*S*H.” And my sisters would   
   be in their rooms, sleeping. And I would be in my room, and he   
   would be in there, molesting me.”   
      
   Murray on Tuesday morning denied the allegations, saying he did   
   live with his cousin, Maryellen Sottile, and her children in New   
   York but did not abuse Dyer. He said there has been a rift in   
   the family for years, and this accusation is untrue.   
      
   “I did not sexually abuse any of her children,” Murray said.   
   “There’s a larger backstory between the Murrays and the Sottiles   
   …   
      
   “There’s been numerous fights between our two families for many   
   years, and much ugliness. I guess they see me down and out, and   
   they want to finish me off.”   
      
   Murray said in a statement Tuesday that he would resign   
   effective 5 p.m. Wednesday.   
      
   The molestation stopped, Dyer said, only after a boy in a   
   Catholic group home where Murray worked accused Murray of abuse.   
   According to Dyer, his uncle negotiated to get group-home   
   officials not to pursue charges as long as Murray left. After   
   that, Murray left town, Dyer said, and he never saw or spoke to   
   his cousin again.   
      
   “I have had no connection with that man — I don’t want any   
   connection with that man whatsoever. I look at him and I get   
   violently ill,” Dyer said.   
      
   An official for the group home, which is still operating,   
   confirmed that an Edward Murray worked there from 1975 to 1976,   
   but had no records saying why he left.   
      
   Murray said he didn’t abuse any children at the group home and   
   left in good standing to attend college in Portland.   
      
   Dyer’s mother — Murray’s first cousin — said her son came to her   
   several months after Murray moved out to say he had been abused.   
      
   “It’s a painful thing for a parent to go through because I   
   wanted to protect all my children,” said Maryellen Sottile, 76.   
   “And here this man came into my home, and he did these terrible   
   things to my son.”   
      
   Dyer and his mother said they are speaking out now after   
   learning recently of the other men who have accused Murray — and   
   because they’re outraged by Murray’s denials.   
      
   Dyer is the fifth man to publicly accuse Murray since April.   
      
   Murray, 62, a former Democratic state legislator, has repeatedly   
   denied that he sexually abused anyone, contending the   
   accusations are part of a political takedown targeting him for   
   his progressive politics and record as a gay-rights champion.   
      
   He announced in May he would end his re-election bid and leave   
   politics when his term expired at year’s end. But he had refused   
   to resign sooner, despite pressure from some mayoral candidates,   
   the city’s Human Rights Commission, LGBTQ Commission and two   
   City Council members, among others.   
      
   “I have had enough”   
   Murray’s other accusers — four men with criminal pasts and drug   
   histories — all claim Murray abused them decades ago, when each   
   was a troubled teenager.   
      
   Jeff Simpson says he was 13 when Murray began abusing him, after   
   Murray was his counselor at a Portland children’s center. The   
   abuse continued, Simpson said, when he lived with Murray as his   
   foster son for about a year, with Murray sometimes paying him   
   for sex.   
      
   Simpson reported the alleged abuse in 1984, after being removed   
   from Murray’s home.   
      
   Murray was not criminally charged, but an Oregon Child   
   Protective Services’ investigator found Murray had sexually   
   abused Simpson. That prompted Oregon child-welfare officials to   
   conclude Murray should never again be a foster parent.   
      
   Lloyd Anderson, another man who met Murray in Portland as a boy,   
   has backed Simpson’s allegations, and said Murray also paid him   
   for sex when Anderson was a teenager.   
      
   Their allegations surfaced in April, when Delvonn Heckard, 46,   
   of Kent, filed a lawsuit saying Murray “raped and molested” him   
   in the 1980s when Heckard was a drug-addicted teen. He later   
   withdrew the lawsuit, but has filed a claim for damages against   
   the city of Seattle.   
      
   A friend of Heckard’s, Maurice Lavon Jones, 44, of Seattle, also   
   claimed Murray paid him for sex when he was a crack-addicted   
   teenage prostitute living on the streets in the 1980s.   
      
   Murray has denied all of their accusations.   
      
   Unlike the other men, Dyer — now studying to be a nurse —   
   doesn’t appear to have any criminal record and says he has never   
   used drugs. Murray has used other accusers’ pasts to attempt to   
   discredit them.   
      
   Dyer’s mother, Sottile, is Murray’s first cousin (her mother and   
   Murray’s mother, Anna Murray, were sisters). In a separate   
   interview, Sottile, a retired postal worker living in North   
   Carolina, corroborated her son’s account of how he told her what   
   had happened to him in their New York home.   
      
   Over the years, Sottile said, she heard bits and pieces about   
   Murray’s political career, from his days as a Washington state   
   legislator to his election in 2013 as Seattle’s mayor.   
      
   But she said she didn’t know about the recent allegations until   
   a few weeks ago — when her sister contacted her after coming   
   across news reports online. Sottile, in turn, contacted Dyer,   
   who started reading the stories, too.   
      
   Dyer said he got angry watching video of Murray appearing before   
   the media to deny some of the other men’s allegations. Dyer said   
   that led him to contact Seattle lawyer Lincoln Beauregard,   
   listed in the news accounts as representing Heckard.   
      
   Dyer provided a signed declaration detailing his own allegations   
   against Murray to Beauregard.   
      
   But the primary motivation for coming forward, Dyer said, is   
   closure.   
      
   “I didn’t know about any of these other people. I didn’t know   
   about this other gentleman that Mr. Beauregard is representing.   
   I knew about none of that,” Dyer said. “Because I saw … clips of   
   (Murray) denying what he did, that pissed me off to the point   
   where I am like, `That’s it. I have had enough.’ I have been   
   carrying this around for 40-some years. Something has got to be   
   done.”   
      
      
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