One of the women who accuses state Sen. Norm McAllister of sexual assault worked for him as an intern at the Vermont Statehouse and helped him with his 2014 election campaign, according to lawmakers.
The 63-year-old dairy farmer and Republican from Franklin County is accused of sexually assaulting three women. McAllister was arrested Thursday outside the Vermont Statehouse and was released after posting $20,000 bail. On Friday he pleaded not guilty to three counts of sexual assault and three counts of prohibited acts in Franklin Superior Court. It is not clear whether McAllister will return to the Statehouse for the final week of the legislative session.
According court documents, McAllister allegedly assaulted two women nearly 100 times, and the abuse began in 2012. The sexual assault charges are felonies and carry a potential sentence of three years to life in prison and a fine of up to $25,000.
McAllister began serving as a state representative in 2002 and was elected to the Statehouse in 2012.
Court documents identify one of the victims as a cleaner, but Sen. Dustin Degree, R-Franklin, and several other lawmakers say McAllister introduced her as an intern at the Statehouse.
McAllister’s intern sorted through the senator’s email. She also had worked on McAllister’s farm and served as a campaign volunteer for the state senator during the 2014 election season, according to Degree. She stopped working for McAllister about halfway through the legislative session.
The intern was allegedly sexually assaulted by McAllister in an apartment on Terrace Street in Montpelier, according to court documents. The alleged victim stayed several nights a week at the apartment McAllister shared with two other lawmakers, according to Degree and several other sources.
Sen. Kevin Mullin, R-Rutland, and Rep. Tim Corcoran, D-Bennington, lived with McAllister this session in the three bedroom apartment. Corcoran did not return a call for comment.
Mullin said he had no knowledge of the assaults. He described the intern as a “young girl” who was “really small.”
Prior to her work as an intern for McAllister, the alleged victim milked goats at his farm in Franklin where she was repeatedly forced to have oral sex with him, according to an affidavit released by the Franklin County state’s attorney. She was first assaulted in 2013, according to court documents and would have been 18 at the time.
In an interview with Seven Days, the victim alleges that McAllister first began sexually assaulting her when she was 15 or 16 years old, and he had paid her $200 per week while she was working in Montpelier.
At the request of victim’s advocates, VTDigger chose not to contact the alleged victims who were mistakenly identified in court documents released Friday following McAllister’s arraignment. Court workers released the names and contact information for the three victims Friday, despite Superior Court Justice Allison Arms request that they be sealed and filed separately from the affidavit released to media.
VTDigger told victim’s advocates of the mistake on Friday. After requesting that VTDigger not try to contact the victims, they asked for a list of other media outlets present. It’s unclear if the same request was made to other outlets.
Degree said he had no inkling that McAllister had anything other than a professional relationship with the 20-year-old intern.
Degree got to know the alleged victim when she helped McAllister with the 2014 state Senate campaign. “I knew her like any other volunteer,” Degree said.
At the Statehouse, he said, “people in the building knew who she was and knew she was working for Norm.”
Degree said it’s important for his constituents to know that the McAllister case hasn’t stopped the Senate from moving forward on education reform and water quality bills that are expected to be completed before adjournment at the end of this week.
“I’m focused on representing them and doing the job I was sent down here to do,” Degree said.
Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell, D-Windsor, said in light of the allegations in the McAllister case, he will work with the Senate and others to establish an ethics commission and institute new rules requiring that all interns register with the pro tem’s office.
“There clearly needs to be a process by which any intern has to be registered with us,” Campbell said.
There is no formal hiring arrangement for interns in the Senate, and Campbell couldn’t say how many work for state senators.
Editors’s note: This story was updated 2:30 a.m. and again at 10:20 a.m. May 11.
