Legal Ethics

DA's Courthouse Sex Was a Crime, Claimed Victim Contends

  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  • Print.

The district attorney of Bedford County, Penn., admits that he had sex with a woman in his courthouse office last month after a monthly meeting of the Bedford County Republicans. At the time, he was vice chairman of the county’s Republican committee.

But William Higgins, who is 34 and married, adamantly denies that the incident involved any crime, saying that the sex was consensual. The woman filed a private criminal complaint against him last week with a Bedford district judge, reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

An investigation of the woman’s complaint is now reportedly ongoing, and is being overseen by the state attorney general. “The attorney general’s staff said the woman alleges sexual misconduct by Mr. Higgins, but it would not release a copy of her allegations,” the newspaper reports.

Higgins said in a television interview last month that he met the woman at a fundraiser and then went with her to his office at the end of the evening, reports the Associated Press.

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

Higgins resigned early this month from his GOP vice chairmanship, telling the Altoona Mirror that he needed to focus on his job and family.

Give us feedback, share a story tip or update, or report an error.