Here's why people are abandoning Grayson and why he's in such a foul mood:
Grayson's ex-wife claimed domestic abuse over two decadesThe Democratic congressman and Florida Senate candidate strongly denies the accusations.
By JOHN BRESNAHAN, MARC CAPUTO and JAKE SHERMAN
07/26/16 05:29 AM EDT
Rep. Alan Grayson's ex-wife repeatedly went to police with accusations of domestic abuse over a two-decade period, according to documents she has provided to POLITICO, revelations that come as the Florida congressman enters the final weeks of his Democratic primary campaign for Senate.
Lolita Grayson called police on her husband at least two times in Virginia and two more times in Florida, sought medical attention on at least two occasions and said that, in one instance, he had threatened to kill her, according to a police report.
The congressman, who asserted Lolita Grayson battered him in 2014, vehemently denies he engaged in any abuse during their 25-year marriage, which ended last year in a bitter annulment that she is now appealing.
The first reported incident described by the documents was in 1994; the final one was in 2014. Lolita Grayson also called Orange County sheriff’s deputies in 2005 to lodge another abuse complaint, but prosecutors filed no charges in that incident or any of the others. Only the 2014 incident has been previously reported.
“I want the people to know my story so they know what kind of man Alan Grayson really is,” Lolita Grayson, 56, said in an email to POLITICO, her first public comments on the issue. She provided police and medical records related to 1994 and 1999 incidents in Fairfax County in Virginia, and sheriff’s reports concerning 2005 and 2014 incidents in Orange County, Florida.
“I requested the medical records and police records so people could read what doctors and police officers wrote,” she stated. “I read many of these records for the first time. These are very painful memories and horrible experiences.”
Through his lawyer, Mark NeJame, Grayson denied ever striking or abusing Lolita Grayson.
"Lolita is a disturbed woman. She has made one false allegation after another. Her own daughter refutes her," said NeJame, referring to a statement from the couple’s oldest child.
“Moreover,” NeJame said of Lolita Grayson’s accusations, “there never has been a witness or any proof whatsoever of her claims. The claims have been so ridiculous that not one time has there even been enough probable cause to bring a charge or an arrest against Alan Grayson."
As for Lolita Grayson’s allegations against him, Grayson has told police and others that his ex-wife fabricated false stories about him, in part to damage his political career, according to a police report and interviews conducted by POLITICO. For instance, one of her 2014 domestic abuse claims against the Florida Democrat was dropped after a video taken by one of his staffers indicated he had not shoved Lolita Grayson, despite her claim to the contrary.
Grayson, a Harvard-educated lawyer who made a fortune from a telecommunications business he launched in the early 1990s, was not in public office during three of the four incidents. The liberal Democrat was first elected to Congress in 2008.
The 58-year-old Grayson, a three-term House Democrat, is locked in a tight Senate race against Rep. Patrick Murphy heading into the Aug. 30 primary.
The Graysons’ marriage was annulled last year after a judge found that she had not divorced her previous husband when she married Grayson in 1990. Alan Grayson has remarried, and his current wife is running for his congressional seat.
During their divorce proceedings, the congressman called Lolita Grayson a “gold digger” and “bigamist.” He also claims she struck him numerous times, set one of their cars on fire in 1993 and used a knife to slash the upholstery of another car in a separate incident, according to a criminal report and other documents.
Lolita Grayson was born in the Philippines in 1960, and she married Robert Carson in 1980. She claims to have divorced Carson in Guam soon after, though Alan Grayson's lawyers say no records of the divorce could be found. Florida records filed in court by the lawmaker's attorneys show the Carsons divorced in 1994, after she married Grayson. He later testified that he thought his ex-wife was single at the time of their marriage, a claim Lolita Grayson disputes in at least one court filing.
Four years after they were married in 1990, Lolita Grayson made the first of her domestic abuse calls to police.
In a July 1994 report by a Fairfax County police officer, Lolita Grayson claimed Alan Grayson hit her “daily.” Another officer wrote, "The dispute stems from his family not wanting her to marry him." The officer reported that Lolita Grayson had a "swollen left check, a cut on her right arm/wrist, and swollen feet."
Lolita Grayson released medical records to POLITICO to support her contention of abuse. The documents state that she did have cuts from the alleged incident. It further states an X-ray showed no serious injury or broken bones.
In December 1999, Fairfax County police reported that Lolita Grayson told officers responding to a domestic violence call at the Graysons' home in Vienna, Virginia, that her husband had hit her with a book on the back of the head, causing her to temporarily lose her memory. There was no sign of injury, according to the police report. "Lolita stated she wanted to make this report because she felt ashamed and decided to file a report after talking with family," the police document states. "Lolita states she didn't wish to prosecute and only wanted to have a report on file."
Police officers offered to remove her from the house but she declined.
Six years later, after the couple had moved to the Orlando, Florida, area, Lolita Grayson made her first call to Orange County sheriff’s deputies. In November 2005, she claimed Alan Grayson made a death threat during an argument over a babysitter. Alan Grayson allegedly pushed her against the wall during the dispute, and she told him "not to hit her and called him an 'bleep,'” according to the police report.
She started to walk away and Grayson then allegedly struck her on the back of the head and told her, "I'm gonna kill you bitch." Lolita Grayson had suffered a stroke the previous month, she said, and worried she might have another. She took their children to a friend's house and didn't return until that night, according to the sheriff's report. The couple argued again, but there was no allegation of more physical abuse. A sheriff's deputy stated in the report seeing a "small bruise that was in plain view on the left side of her chest, which she claims was caused when her husband pushed her, along with another small bruise on the back of her left hand."
The local prosecutor’s office contacted Lolita Grayson about pressing domestic battery charges, but there is no indication she cooperated. Police referred the matter to prosecutors, who declined to move forward, documents show.
Lolita Grayson’s statements to authorities at the time were inconsistent with her earlier account of how often she was allegedly battered. She told investigators that Grayson “has hit her in the past four or five times.” In 1994, Lolita Grayson said beatings were a “daily occurrence.”
The only widely known case involving the Graysons occurred on March 1, 2014, roughly three months after Lolita Grayson had filed for divorce. Alan Grayson had moved out of the home and when he returned to see their five children, the couple had a heated argument, records indicate.
According to the police report, Lolita Grayson alleged the congressman “shoved” her near the entrance to the house, and she “went backwards into the door. Lolita defended herself by grabbing Alan in the jaw area and delivered a ‘knee spike’ in his abdomen area, causing him to kneel down,” the document stated. Alan Grayson then returned to his car. The following day, Lolita Grayson went to the hospital.
The police report stated that Lolita Grayson, who told police she was trained in tae kwon do, suffered “visible bruising on the upper left side of her back, near the left shoulder.” Photographs taken at the time of the incident show a large red bruise on her upper arm.
However, their oldest daughter, Skye Grayson, and Grayson’s congressional staffer, Juan Lopez, contradicted Lolita Grayson’s account.
Lopez had followed Grayson to the family home in a separate car that day and shot video that showed Lolita Grayson allegedly striking her estranged husband, not the other way around. Grayson alerted the media to the video and said it vindicated him.
Grayson said he never touched his estranged wife, calling her “crazy” and “abusive.” The congressman said he brought along Lopez to document the visit because he feared she would “hit herself with a frying pan and blame me.”
“Please, Juan, record by all means. I am not forcing you to, but please,” Grayson told Lopez, according to an incident report. Lopez said that, after they arrived, Lolita Grayson began shouting at her estranged husband, “All you are doing is sleeping around with black and white women. ... You are never going to see the kids again! Get out of here.”
Lolita Grayson acknowledged she questioned Grayson’s fidelity, according to the report. She said Grayson was verbally abusive, telling her at one point: “Go to hell and die! I'll make sure you will get nothing, you will be in the gutter.”
Lolita Grayson called 911, but no arrests were made. Both Graysons had alleged the other had committed a crime, though no charges were ever filed.
An assistant state attorney who decided not to prosecute Lolita Grayson for battery had doubts about the video and whether the congressman was actually the victim.
“Incident on video appears staged contrived by alleged VT [victim],” referring to Alan Grayson, read a document approved by Assistant State Attorney Rebekah Shanai Taylor. It also called Alan Grayson’s claim that he was battered “not credible.” POLITICO obtained the document through a public records request.
Besides raising the issue of whether his estranged wife was a bigamist, Grayson sought a psychiatric evaluation for Lolita Grayson. He also tried to force her to sign an “apology,” repudiating all her allegations against him, according to a court filing in the divorce proceeding.
The couple's oldest daughter issued a statement to POLITICO, saying her father had done nothing wrong throughout the marriage. Skye Grayson, 21, said she and her siblings did not want to be “pawns in a game of power” with an unnamed “political opponent.”
“My mother has always struggled with emotional issues,” said Skye Grayson, who noted that several of the older children chose to live with their dad. “She physically lashed out at me, my siblings and our father, and then blamed us for it, victimizing us. This resulted in a considerably troubled childhood home.”
Skye Grayson herself was accused at one point of domestic abuse by her mother. In November 2013, Lolita Grayson told the Orange County Sheriff's Office that her daughter slapped the phone out of her hand as she dialed 911 after an argument erupted over Skye Grayson smoking in her car. No arrests were made.
The congressman hasn’t always insisted on such a high legal standard when it comes to citing domestic abuse in political campaigns. During a political campaign in 2012, Grayson’s congressional campaign combed through his opponent Todd Long's divorce file and accused him — falsely, according to that candidate’s ex-wife — of being a domestic abuser. Grayson called attention to a statement from the Republican’s ex-wife in which she called him “abusive and manipulative.”
"Wow, the Republicans sure know how to pick them, don't they?" Grayson said in a campaign email at the time that highlighted the divorce testimony by Long’s ex-wife. She told the Orlando Sentinel in a written statement from his campaign “there were no incidences of domestic violence.”
Grayson responded, the paper reported, by criticizing the press for not doing more to highlight the issue of domestic violence.
“I'm disgusted that no major media in this town will let people know things that our polling shows they regard as highly relevant,” he said.
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