Packwood Accusers Being Sought Defense Attorneys Want Time To Privately Question Women
Lawyers for Sen. Bob Packwood have been seeking to privately question the women accusing him of sexual misconduct, The Oregonian reported Saturday.
The Senate Select Committee on Ethics told the women’s attorneys Friday that their clients will not have to answer questions from Packwood’s lawyers outside of a committee hearing, several of the lawyers said. Packwood is scheduled to appear before the committee in a private hearing Tuesday to present his case.
Packwood lawyer Bob Muse told The Associated Press the ethics committee had supplied Packwood with names and telephone numbers of the women or their attorneys.
“The committee knew we would be contacting these people because it’s only fair that Senator Packwood be given the opportunity to fully inquire into these matters,” he said from Washington.
Packwood attorneys Mindy Lieberman and Pam Stuart have been contacting the women’s lawyers on behalf of Packwood.
The Senate Select Committee on Ethics has charged Packwood with seeking financial help from lobbyists and others, altering his diaries to obstruct the committee investigation and making 18 unwanted sexual advances to 17 women.
“I’m sure by now some of you have received phone calls from Pam Stuart and Mindy Lieberman,” Elizabeth McKanna, a Portland lawyer who is coordinating representation for Packwood’s accusers, wrote in a June 16 letter to the women’s attorneys.
McKanna’s letter questions Packwood’s motivation in trying to contact the women so late in the process, suggesting it might be a public relations ploy.
“Is Packwood trying to set up the women based on their refusals, for example, to use that fact against them with the media?” McKanna asks in the letter.
Leslie M. Roberts, a Portland lawyer, said she isn’t sure what to make of the phone call she received from Stuart and Lieberman about two weeks ago. Roberts represents Jean McMahon, a Philadelphia woman who alleges Packwood chased her around a coffee table and tried to kiss her when she applied for a speech-writing job in the mid-‘70s.