The GOP campaign operative who accused Matt Schlapp of sexually assaulting him publicly identified himself on Wednesday.
Carlton Huffman, 39, a longtime Republican operative from Raleigh, North Carolina said Wednesday that he is the man who filed the $9.4 million suit claiming sexual battery and defamation by Schlapp. He decided to go public after a judge said he must use his real name to proceed with the lawsuit, according to the Washington Post.
Huffman told the Daily Beast earlier this year that the alleged assault took place when he was a field worker for Herschel Walker’s senate campaign in Georgia on October 19. Huffman, who was assigned to drive Schlapp, said he “groped” and “fondled” his crotch in the car and invited him to his hotel room.
Schlapp has denied the allegations.
“I’m not backing away,” Huffman told The Washington Post.“I’m not going to drop this. Matt Schlapp did what he did and he needs to be held accountable.”
In a video posted to Twitter, Huffman said, “The reason I step forward is to be sure that Matt Schlapp never gets the opportunity to prey on anybody else without the world knowing the kind of man that he is.”
Huffman has come under scrutiny in recent months after his own controversial comments resurfaced.
Huffman reportedly glorified the Confederate flag, blamed Black people and illegal immigrants for violent crime, and called for ‘preserving the European American culture of the United States in past writings on a white supremacist blog.
He told The Post on Wednesday that “was an ugly chapter of my life that I am personally ashamed of. That is not who I am anymore.”
