The state attorney general, one of the fiercest critics of the financial services industry, has been accused by multiple women of violent assaults
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, one of the toughest critics of the financial services industry, has resigned following allegations of assault by multiple women.
The allegations were reported in The New Yorker on Monday. Four women accused Schneiderman of physical violence against them in the course of romantic relationships. Two who spoke on record, Michelle Manning Barish and Tanya Selvaratnam, said that although they were romantically involved with Schneiderman, the violence was nonconsensual, according to a CNN report. Manning Barish and Selvaratnam said that Schneiderman had hit and choked them, and told the magazine that the assaults occurred “often after drinking, frequently in bed and never with their consent.”
Selvaratnam told CNN in a statement that she worried about what Schneiderman might do to other women when she found out that she was not his only victim.
“So I chose to come forward both to protect women who might enter into a relationship with him in the future but also to raise awareness around the issues of intimate partner violence,” she said.
In a tweet Monday, Schneiderman denied the allegations.
“In the privacy of intimate relationships, I have engaged in role-playing and other consensual sexual activity,” the tweet read. “I have not assaulted anyone. I have never engaged in non-consensual sex, which is a line I would not cross.”
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has opened an investigation into the allegations, according to CNN.
Schneiderman made a name for himself in the wake of the financial crisis by going after banking giants for shoddy mortgage-bond sales practices. He forced settlements from big banks like UBS, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Goldman Sachs, securing nearly $4 billion in settlement payments for the state of New York.
