Up, Up And Away

The man in the photo at right has recently been accused of sexual harassment in a lawsuit, and not one of the alleged advances was “Would you like a mustache ride?”

Okay, the pictured man is Stephen M. Sweeney, a state senator and Freeholder-Director of Gloucester County’s Democratic Party. The woman accusing him of sexual harassment is Diane Kirwan-Patterson, who works in the county’s economic development office and used to hold a position in the county Democratic Party.

There’s a whole bunch of subplots involved — Kirwan-Patterson was demoted at her job in the county office because she accepted rooms form a ventor (she denies this), she’s also on medical leave and is unlikely to return to her job before she retires — but what you want are the hot, juicy advances. Oh, and here they come (no pun intended):

According to her lawsuit: At a cocktail party in 1998, Sweeney, who is also a state senator, asked her in earshot of three of her co-workers whether she would “get naked for him.”

The following year, while in a hotel suite in Atlantic City during a conference, Sweeney told Kirwan-Patterson “how nice it would be” for the two of them to sit naked together in a Jacuzzi.

In 2000, during a meeting of county officials, when Sweeney yawned, Kirwan-Patterson asked him if those present were keeping him awake. Sweeney replied, “Oh Diane, you could keep me “up’ any time you wanted.”

Do you think he did the finger-quotes by himself, or were those implied by Kirwan-Patterson?

Sweeney faces sexual harassment lawsuit [Camden Courier Post]