CONTENT WARNING: Sean Doherty Update: How This Former Legislative Chief of Staff Physically Abused Male Staff and Literally Sold Legislative Actions to Lobbyists

 2020 Elections, Scumbags, Sean Doherty  No Responses »
Oct 302019
 

If you’ve been reading the Right on Daily Blog for any length of time, we are about dealing with corruption as much as we are about dismantling campaigns. The Story of Sean Doherty has to be told because the culture in Sacramento is completely out of control.

Some of what we’ve written is disturbing, including a graphic account of a sexual assault in the previous post.

Sean Doherty is now a registered lobbyist in Washington D.C. and is trying to reinvent himself there. See his filing here, the second filing is here and here is another filing.

It is time for Republican Leaders to Stop Making Political Calculations and Start Exercising Moral Judgement. Being Cowards will not get our Voter Registration to stop its’ free-fall in California. It is time to rid the GOP of monsters like Sean Doherty and “leaders” who are too weak to deal with people like Doherty and others that rampage and abuse people.

At the time of the writing of this post, I have now interviewed 7 former staffers that worked for Sean Doherty. Prior to 6 weeks ago, I had only spoken to one with direct employment history and several others in the building that had very low opinions of Doherty but no first-hand experience.

In addition to the stories about Sean Doherty’s temper and rampaging, are still other staffers telling about being punched more than once by Mr. Doherty. We are not talking about playful swipes, but punches that left red marks or small bruises. The punching of employees was in addition to throwing things at them in the office.

Other staffers that worked in the office with Doherty had the misfortune of seeing him snap photos up the skirts of female staffers when they were having to get to high reach areas in the very small office they were in. Remember, female staff were forbidden to wear pants in Sean Doherty’s office. I was specifically told about one intern that quit rather than comply despite Sean’s threats to use his connections and experience in the building to destroy anyone that did not comply with his demands.

Sean Doherty was so controlling and abusive that he even stuck one intern in the hallway outside the office at one point.

You are probably wondering how the legislator did not know what was happening? This is because Sean Doherty kept the legislator on a tight schedule with a lot of appearances and meetings. The legislator was rarely in his office and had little down time.

Sean Doherty was also able to keep staff from going to the Assembly Rules Committee because the rules committee had a reputation for covering up misconduct or giving out slaps on the wrist. In addition, Doherty claimed to have moles in the rules committee staff that would tell him who complained about him so he could retaliate against them. (Which he did attempt to do) Given that a legitimate complaint against Bill Brough for sexual battery was disposed of with minimal investigation in 2016, I can understand how staff felt trapped – especially with a monster like Sean Doherty threatening to have the connections to destroy them.

While Sean Doherty was engaging in abusive behavior against his employees, he was fond of bragging about how his own salary was near the top of the scale while the rest of the staff were basically being paid the minimum possible.

It is the complete package of abuse and psychotic control. Verbal abuse, sexual harassment in its’ purest form, sexual assault, physical assault, mental and emotional abuse – yet the Assembly Rules Committee took the easy way out and just fired Doherty rather than refer him for prosecution.

Then there is Sean Doherty literally selling legislation and amendments to lobbyists. He’d have loud phone calls in his office with lobbyists where the staff could hear him clearly. He’d give the lobbyist instructions on how to make out the check and where to send it to – then would order the applicable staff in to his office and instruct them to write up a bill or an amendment. Some bills that Sean Doherty had his legislator run were amended once a week as Doherty would play lobbyists off against each other. No one could tell me if Sean was putting money in his own pocket doing this, but they all figured he was.

When Trevor went to the Rules Committee and unloaded on Sean Doherty Jan of 2017, it did set off a chain of events with petrified staff.

One of the many abusive things Sean Doherty did was brag about having a ton of land and a ton of Ammo. “I can hide a body” he’d joke, when he wasn’t throwing staplers at people, talking graphically about sex, punching staff or manipulating lobbyists.

One staffer, whose voice was audibly cracking, told me that the day the feckless Assembly Rules Committee finally terminated Sean Doherty that the whole staff was paralyzed in fear. This is because they believed that Sean Doherty was going to make good on his threats of physical violence. The person I spoke with legitimately told me that they feared for their life. I could hear this young staffer reliving the trauma of not knowing what the Rules Committee was going to do, if anything.

Trevor and other staffers warned the Assembly Rules Committee in January 2017 that unless they had Sean Doherty Prosecuted for what he did that he’d sue the State. This is exactly what happened as in early 2018, timed specifically to damage his former boss, Sean Doherty started rumors that his former boss sexually assaulted a staffer. Then he followed with a wrongful termination lawsuit.

At the time, I was looking to use my blog to meet out retribution on anyone that supported Cap and Trade. When I got the story, I was preparing to write about it when I spoke to a former employee of Sean Doherty’s that warned me that Doherty was projecting his bad behavior and that the member did not do it. I investigated in early 2018 and determined that indeed it was Sean Doherty pushing the story. The now multiply traumatized female staffer (who I have not talked to, and who appears to be ignoring attempts from her fellow former co-workers to contact) may well have been sexually assaulted by Sean Doherty (not the member) in a manner similar to the story in the previous post. All the staff I spoke to believe that there are multiple victims of Sean Doherty’s sexual rampage, though I only spoke to one victim of sexual assault and multiple victims of sexual harassment.

About April of 2018, in a move timed to damage the member, Sean Doherty did indeed file a lawsuit. The Lawsuit is still pending. I was told by several people in the district that Sean was working closely with the Republican Primary Opponent who lost to the member who barely survived the primary.

The Republican Members in the State Legislature had to have known some of the details of the Sean Doherty story, yet they did little or nothing about it. It sure explains the saga continuing with other Republicans in office in 2019.

CONTENT WARNING (Extremely Graphic Descriptions): Sexual Assaults by Former Assembly Chief of Staff Sean Doherty As Described by Former Staff

 2020 Elections, Scumbags, Sean Doherty  2 Responses »
Oct 252019
 

What I am about to write and you are about to read is disturbing and will be one of the most graphic posts I have ever written. Please exercise discretion with this post. The contents were disturbing enough that I had to take extra time to process what I was told. The brutal reality is that this behavior used to be covered up all the time and that it has been a not uncommon occurrence in the Sacramento Legislative Building.

Sean Doherty is now a registered lobbyist in Washington D.C. and is trying to reinvent himself there. See his filing here, the second filing is here and here is another filing.

It is time for Republican Leaders to Stop Making Political Calculations and Start Exercising Moral Judgement. Being Cowards will not get our Voter Registration to stop its’ free-fall in California. It is time to rid the GOP of monsters like Sean Doherty and “leaders” who are too weak to deal with people like Doherty and others that rampage and abuse people.

One of the disturbing and reviling things Sean Doherty did was require his staff to participate in after hours receptions – and then badger them in to drinking. When I was first told about this several years ago, I did not have multiple witnesses and thus did not write about this previously. What’s worse is that in between his fits of rage he’d threaten to fire staffers that did not drink with him. He’d berate them as bitches and pussies for example.

It is the opinion of this blogger that the drinking exploits were also done in order to loosen up female staff for later exploitation. When I posited that theory to the women I spoke with – the responses I got were beyond what I could have expected.

One of the victims whose graphic and disturbing stories are a focus of this post indicated at one time she attempted to order a Corona in an attempt to not get intoxicated and Doherty rampaged over to the bar loudly castigating her. “My Staffers Drink Double Crown” he exclaimed.

Doherty was also reputed to spend large amounts of money on hotel rooms at expensive hotels while on trips. It is the opinion of the staffers I spoke to this was also done in an attempt to increase his odds of success in his attempts to seduce women while he was away from his family.

In addition to incidences like those I described in previous posts about dropping items on the floor in order to force female staffers to bend down to pick them up and the cat calling, Doherty was known for graphic descriptions of having sex with his wife in the office. They included graphic descriptions of all forms of anal sex, kinky sex, oral sex and climaxing. He told both victims they should file papers on their knees so they would be on their knees in front of him in and among graphic descriptions of oral sex.

He asked one of the victims what her cup size was and was known for critiquing the attire and appearance of the staff. A different staffer reported being criticized about her face in the morning, then being written up that afternoon for “inappropriate dress code”. 

You can imagine why most of the the victims I have talked to regarding Sean Doherty’s rampage ended up in therapy.

One of the victims described to me that Sean Doherty touched her in the buttocks and breasts more than once. Note that the redacted Assembly Rules complaints (not filed by any of my informants by the way – they are two OTHER victims of Sean), also indicated Sean’s pattern of unwanted physical contact.

From an email sent to me (Raw and unedited):

I remember I couldn’t get my lyft app to work some GPS issue it said (later I realized the data for the app had been turned off) and I was panicking. I actually asked this woman in the bathroom for help and said look im really drunk and need to get out of here now and she looked at me didn’t say anything then stepped out to announce to those at the bar “theres a drunk girl in there saying she needs to get out of here.” I immediately freaked out knowing sean probably thought I was trying to get away and was calling and texting my roommate (who also worked in the cap and heard my complaints about sean every day) and begged her to come get me telling her where I was.

After reaching out to her I left the bathroom and sean ended up successfully pulling me outside and told me “you aren’t trying to leave me are you (with this devilish smirk), I got us a suite at the hyatt downtown” as his hand gripped my arm tighter pulling me away from the front of the bar to the side of the building.

It was here that he was able to have me alone in a dim lit area and he pushed me against the wall, telling me “ive been waiting for this all day” had his hands pushing mine onto the wall so I couldn’t move and forced himself on me kissing me and saying “I know you can kiss better than that” as I was literally in tears, couldn’t say much and was not kissing him back and then he shoved his hands down my pants and started fondling me. He said some more disturbing things I cant even bring myself to repeat after this and then as soon as he let one hand off of me I was able to push him off and walk towards the front as I saw a car and was praying it was my roommate but it turned out to be the lyft that he had apparently ordered before this incident and as soon as I was close enough to recognize it wasn’t her car he was trying to shove me into it and right then luckily is when my roommate showed up with her lights on us and I was able to dodge the bullet of god knows what because he recognized her and I think the lights caught his attention enough for me to push away from him and go get in her car.

The next day in the office (he came in late running in and slammed the door of course) he said he wanted to talk to me “about last night” in a stern voice and brought me into his office. He said, “are you okay? I just want to make sure you know you weren’t that bad of a kisser, you don’t need to be ashamed… and you felt good too…and smelled good” I couldn’t say anything I was still so messed up and stunned I literally just nodded and then justin came knocking for a meeting and I immediately ran to my desk at the opening.

This was not the only assault either. This was just the first one and was the turning point for me to realize I was not safe in that office and needed to leave.

Given that this victim ended up in therapy, it is clear that the event was both severe and traumatic. This sort of dynamic is why I never discounted any of the victim’s revelations about what happened between them and Bill Brough. A woman does not end up in therapy for no reason. A woman does not have nightmares over an event for no reason. The victim gave me permission to re-tell this story and I was also told this is the first time she has shared this in such detail.

Those of you reading this blog have a choice – hide behind excuses to ignore this or start accepting the brutal reality that this sort of behavior is common in the body politic. The political landscape is littered with victims of similar abuse.

Sean Doherty has a clear and discernible pattern according to the interviews I had with staffers that worked for him. He preferred young vulnerable women from broken homes he could quickly win the trust of and isolate. The staffer he criticized about her face, then wrote up for dress code had a lot of pre-existing relationships in the building and he attempted to damage and destroy those relationships – including the false rumor about her doing republican volunteer club work on the clock. The victim that Doherty nearly raped was on her first job in the legislature.

Note that Sean Doherty has a still-pending wrongful termination lawsuit against the State of California! I wonder if the court knows about the above incidents?

Sean Doherty needs to be isolated from anything anywhere near politics. It is also my opinion that he should be prosecuted for the things he has done as the statue of limitations has not expired. This expose’ will be continued as more victims have come forward…

P.S. The Assembly Rules Committee apparently was told about a lot of the horrific behavior of Sean Doherty and they appear to have only terminated him. The Staffers that were victimized begged the Rules Committee to refer him for prosecution and it appears they declined to do so.

CONTENT WARNING Special Update: Sean Doherty, and the Sacramento Cesspool. One of the Worst of the Worst, a Cautionary Tale of Why Deviants Need to be Dealt With Quickly

 2020 Elections, Sean Doherty  1 Response »
Oct 212019
 

Ask yourself, who in the Republican Party defends Women? We expect this crap from the godless amoral democrats as it appears there is one GOP loser for every democrat. It’s an absolute shame that we have seen zero leadership on the GOP side, even with the recent light handed solution to force Bill Brough into retirement from the OCGOP. When interviewing victims of Sean Doherty, a former Chief of Staff, I finally met a male Republican Staffer that demonstrated extraordinary courage unlike the OCGOP.

Sean Doherty is now a registered lobbyist in Washington D.C. and is trying to reinvent himself there. See his filing here, the second filing is here and here is another filing. He is recently advertising opening an office in Washington D.C. With that kind of power, I am convinced that Mr. Doherty will resume his pattern of verbal, physical and sexual abuse of people he knows are subordinated to him. Mr. Doherty needs to be removed from any position where he has power and control over anyone.

As one example – Sean Doherty has been known for imbibing in copious amounts of alcohol after work. I have first hand eyewitness accounts of Sean Doherty actually drinking in his office during business hours and forcing staff members to drink after hours as well (with zero regard to their wishes).

How did Sean Doherty force staff to drink after hours with him? Read on. Understanding the why is key to understanding almost every story of misconduct you hear about any legislator or senior staffer that comes out of Sacramento.

An ugly fact is the perception that the Assembly Rules Committee has a reputation for being a cover up factory (at least until 2-2-2018) so people had no incentive to tell their story. Given the culture of retaliation and fear it is quite easy to understand how some 20-something staffers in one of their first jobs (if not the first) would feel trapped by Sean Doherty. I will develop this theme, but the patterns I have seen time and time again suggest to me why some people like Lisa Bartlett wait 8 years (despite the fact that she had complained 7 years ago to no avail) to tell their story with hope for some sort of redress.

I’ve now spoken to 6 former staffers that worked for Sean Doherty and at least two more are depicted in the redacted Assembly Rules Reports related to Doherty’s termination. In the last three years, I’ve had other staffers of other legislators tell me Sean Doherty stories.

One staffer I spoke to indicated that Sean threw a stapler at him in a fit of rage. Another Staffer Indicated that he would throw people’s business cards on the ground and then he would throw them on the ground a second time after they were picked up. Included in these bizarre events would be expletive laden tirades and graphic sexual innuendo – which included calling male staffers pu–ies and bitches.

Worse – similar to other abuse victims that have been outed, the former legislative Staffers that spoke to me are very much concerned that their stories need to be heard to prevent future abuse, but also fear the consequences of their names getting out in public. The two females in particular still work in politically-related jobs and fear the ever present culture of fear and retaliation. It still happens despite meaningless rhetoric that it does not.

I could hear male and female alike, despite these events being from 2015, 2016 and early 2017 with their voices trembling and palpable fear. This is similar to the trauma exhibited by the victims of Bill Brough and others I have written about in the past. Sean Doherty may well be the worst I’ve ever written about as years later the victims were almost all experiencing legitimate anxiety while talking to me.

The reports of the victims of Sean Doherty follow the way too familiar pattern of a predator. Based on what I’ve learned, I believe that he appears to have preferred young women from broken families that he could play father figure to. He’d get himself way too close way too fast and gather all kinds of information from the unsuspecting staffers or interns before they knew that he had crashed their boundaries. Doherty would use the information as leverage and control later as his true manner would start to reveal itself. People with a psychological background would understand the type of person I am describing.

If anyone attempted to speak up or threatened to quit because of the abuse, Sean Doherty immediately threatened to destroy them and make sure they could never get a job in the capitol or anywhere around again.

In this case I get why the member of the legislature did nothing. The current and former staff that I spoke to believe that it is because Sean Doherty knew all about the member’s personal issues and personal business and strategically used it as leverage to keep his job.

It is interesting too, because Sean Doherty attempted to sue that legislator in 2018 – timed deliberately before the June primary to make news headlines— for wrongful termination. Talk about brazen and arrogant, and I just learned that lawsuit is still active. Perhaps the State of California can avail themselves of the Right on Daily Blog to convince the judge to toss the suit.

This pattern of psychological warfare and control is a pretty consistent thread I see in the monsters I write about in politics.

Most of the former staffers I spoke to needed therapy and some medication to move on from the trauma they endured from working under the abusive Sean Doherty. In future posts, I will be telling some extremely graphic and disturbing stories. This needs to stop at all levels in the body politic. 

Please note that the pattern of Sean Doherty – including the nightmares and the need for therapy by the victims – tracks a lot of the same with Bill Brough.

I had the privilege of speaking to the employee who was responsible for getting the Assembly Rules committee to take the Sean Doherty situation seriously. He was okay with going on the record and currently works the same sitting legislator’s district office. It was during a Sean Doherty rampage where he was trying to terminate one of the man’s co workers in the district office that he intervened.

This employee, Trevor, went to the Assembly Rules Committee, where he proceeded to unload everything he knew about the office culture, along with the illegal and disgusting happenings. He resigned following this, as he could not justify working another day with Sean Doherty as the Chief of Staff. He returned as staffer to the original member of the legislature’s office roughly seven months after Sean Doherty was terminated for cause. His courage meant that he was without a job for over half of the year.

Had Trevor not come forward, it is likely that the abuse would be continuing to this day as it appears that the member lacked the temerity to remove Sean Doherty. Trevor, who is much younger than your intrepid blogger, demonstrated more courage, character and leadership than dozens of so-called Republican Leaders I’ve been writing about.

Many Republicans in leadership choose to ignore information because it is much easier or simply they live to avoid conflict at all costs. The expose on the severity of acts committed by Sean Doherty will continue in the next installment, (please be prepared for extremely disturbing content) while other posts will cover Bill Brough. Your intrepid blogger will continue to blow the whistle. Let them both be a cautionary tale of what happens when you ignore conflict and avoid dealing with the monsters in your midst.

CONTENT WARNING: OCGOP Special Update: Sean Doherty, Former Legislative Chief of Staff – Fired for Sexual Misconduct, Trying to Re-Emerge in Orange County?

 2020 Elections, Sean Doherty  3 Responses »
Oct 162019
 

Since the OCGOP Leadership seem to have a problem vetting people, and an even worse problem dealing with bad actors once in or in place, allow your intrepid blogger to provide a service.

It has come to the attention of your intrepid blogger that one Sean Doherty is attempting to re-emerge as a player in Southern California. Please consider yourselves warned, Sean Doherty is bad news.

Yup – there it is in black and white. Sean Doherty got fired

Sean Doherty has the distinction of being one of the very few monsters (my opinion of him) actually terminated by the Assembly Rules Committee for sexual misconduct. I wrote in previous blogs about Steve Davey. Both Davey and Doherty were Republican Chiefs of Staff with long, sordid histories of misconduct.

Well – there is a nexus to Bill Brough that I will be developing, but suffice to say Sean Doherty is Irish. One of my key criticisms of Bill Brough is the Irish Caucus ‘Slush Fund’ he created.

Just today, Sean Doherty announced a new office in Washington DC

I’ve been aware for a long time that Sean Doherty is bad news in California Politics. It is hard to keep track of people’s movements in capitol jobs. However, when I get to talk to 3 former staffers that worked for him in Sacramento whose graphic disturbing stories were actually as bad and worse than the stories related to Bill Brough, it got my attention. When I learned that these staffers were also familiar with Bill Brough’s behavior I was taking notes as fast as I could.

It is about time for people within the body politic to start doing homework. If you live in Orange County especially, pay attention.

This is Sean Doherty with Jeff Denham and Kevin McCarthy. I am pretty sure that Kevin McCarthy does not know about Mr. Doherty’s history.

Sean Doherty has a decent political resume that goes back before my first days in politics (think pre-1998) and as such he can present himself well. Similar to the pattern of many of the worst in politics, he is charming and manipulative. There is a dark side to Sean Doherty that many know and with few exceptions, traumatized victims have been unwilling or unable to talk about it.

As I’ve learned from research, you have to be a colossal screw up to get yourself fired by the Assembly Rules Committee.

7 out of 10 complaints get tossed. Of the 30% or so that get investigated precious few of the offenders get terminated.

Pay attention to these snippets – they came straight out of the infamous document dump on 2-2-2018. The documents are posted on the LA Times for all to see forever. You’ve seen your intrepid blogger post several follow ups related to #METOO investigations that have led to more terminations.

I am pretty sure if Doug LaMalfa and Kevin McCarthy were aware of the forced termination and circumstances behind, they would distance themselves from Doherty. Anyone in Orange County or Southern California being contacted by this guy should use extreme caution.

As we are going to unload on Sean Doherty – there are some fascinating connections to one Bill Brough. Given the myriad issues with Brough – perhaps political people in Southern California will heed a warning for a change and not give this guy the right time of day.

Note – Sean Doherty was talking to female employees this way. I’ve spoken to a couple of them, but this is just the beginning of the Sean Doherty Story.