The former neighbor of a woman who claims Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s said she recalls the former Senate staffer telling her about the alleged attack.
Lynda LaCasse, 60, told Business Insider that Tara Reade recounted the alleged assault by Biden in 1995 or 1996.
“This happened, and I know it did because I remember talking about it,” LaCasse, said in the report published Monday.
Reade has claimed the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee pinned her against a wall in 1993, reached under her skirt and assaulted her. The Biden campaign has strenuously denied the allegations.
LaCasse says Reade told her about the assault one evening when both women lived in Morro Bay, California.
“We were talking about violent stories,” LaCasse said, “because I had a violent situation. We just started talking about things and she just told me about the senator that she had worked for and he put his hand up her skirt.”
“She felt like she was assaulted, and she really didn’t feel there was anything she could do,” LaCasse said.
LaCasse, a former staffer at San Luis Obispo General Hospital in California, recalled Reade becoming emotional when speaking about the incident.
“She was crying,” she said. “She was upset. And the more she talked about it, the more she started crying. I remember saying that she needed to file a police report.”
“I don’t remember all the details,” LaCasse continued. “I remember the skirt. I remember the fingers. I remember she was devastated.”
LaCasse said she decided to speak up because she believed Reade’s account when she first heard it. She identified as a Democrat and said she would vote for Biden, regardless.
Business Insider also spoke to Lorraine Sanchez, a former legislative staffer in the office of California state Sen. Jack O’Connell, where Reade worked after she left Washington DC in the mid-90s.
“[Reade said] she had been sexually harassed by her former boss while she was in DC,” Sanchez said, “and as a result of her voicing her concerns to her supervisors, she was let go, fired.”
Reade told the outlet that she had been referring to Biden.
Last week, video emerged of a woman calling into CNN’s “Larry King Live” in August 1993 to voice concerns about “problems” her daughter suffered at while working for a “prominent senator” — without mentioning sexual harassment or identifying Biden by name.
Reade said it was her mother, who died in 2016, on the call.
Earlier this month, Reade filed a police report in Washington DC about the alleged assault. Cops said Saturday that the case had been “moved to an inactive status.”
Other former Senate staffers have cast doubt on Reade’s accusations, including Marianne Baker, Biden’s executive assistant for almost two decades, who said she never witnessed or heard about any inappropriate behavior.
In a statement earlier this month, Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s communications director said: “Women have a right to tell their story, and reporters have an obligation to rigorously vet those claims. We encourage them to do so, because these accusations are false.”
When asked about LaCasse’s statements, Bedingfield referred Business Insider to that statement.
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