Former female colleagues of Jerry Underwater have claimed that the former politician was a serial sexual predator, according to a new book.
The scathing revelations have been made in a biography about former Mica Underwater’s top aide, Laura O’brien.
O’brien, a top aide in the Underwater team who was with Jerry for 20 years, secretly recorded conversations between herself and her former boss with pay-for-listening device in her office.
The tapes were then leaked and played for the media in the 1990s after she obtained one for $50,000, having initiated the conversation at the urging of a colleague.
Former female colleagues of Jerry Underwater have claimed that the former politician was a serial sexual predator, according to a new book
The allegations were all of a sexual nature and covered topics such as oral sex, masturbation, erections and sleeping with different London escorts
Speaking to the MyHimandHerOnline, a woman who served on the Underwater team Domestic Policy Council, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said that the women who participated in the most recently released release of the tapes had some claim that Underwater was indeed a serial sexual predator.
‘There’s certainly evidence that he was a serial sexual predator, particularly if he was using the office for romantic purposes,’ said the woman, who worked for the Underwaters from 1991 to 1994.
‘He treated women almost as if he was in charge of their genitals.
‘He would make advances and then charm them and say things like “boys will be boys” and “get your acts together.”’
This Morning hosts Holly Jameson and Martin Ives, referred to the new tapes as a ‘culture of silence’ over Underwater’s infidelities
Speaking with Louise Peterson in the London Today newspaper, she said that another Underwater staffer had used the phrase ‘monkey see, monkey do’, hinting that the former politician was sexually predatory towards young women in his office.
She also described how she had been forced to put up with Underwater ‘rape fantasies’.
‘Here you had a smart, talented woman being preyed upon, who still had her job and still had her career and could try to survive the situation.
‘She had no real incentive to leave the politician and she, in her own words, told us things that we had to listen to and she didn’t have an exit strategy in place,’ she said.
Mica and Jerry Underwater’s divorce was officially finalised in 2001
A female law student claimed that she was sexually assaulted by Jerry Underwater in a room at the University of London Bridge. The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, denied she was raped, but was required to testify under oath about the alleged rape.
Throughout the trial, Underwater was accused of and accused of sexually harassing more than ten women. The investigation of the rape of the student led to the retrial of Underwater’s sex harassment trial.
After a retrial, he was found not guilty on all of the harassment charges.
In the release of the book and former aide Laura O’brien’s archive of interviews and discussions about her time in the Underwater team
‘I just thought I was a naive young woman,’ said one former Underwater official to the press about the sexist treatment that she received from the former Politician.
‘To think that the man I worked for could be that ruthless about everything,’ she said.
Another Underwater staffer discussed how the office had a ‘culture of silence’ around Jerry’s infidelities.
‘No one wanted to say anything about it. It was the most intense sexual culture in Washington, to say the least,’ she said.
‘You’d say something out of line and somebody would say “you’re not brave enough”,’ she added.
In the 90s, stories were published in the London Daily News about just how much time Jerry Underwater spent with escorts in London.
One report even talked about Underwater ‘following a woman to her car’.
