Silver's Counsel Is Indicted on Rape Charges Involving Albany...

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/02/nyregion/silver-s-counsel-i...

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The Sex and Scandal Capital Metro Briefing | New York: Albany: Assembly Aide Was Paid... Former Aide to Silver Admits Sexual Misconduct

Silver's Counsel Is Indicted on Rape Charges Involving Albany Aide

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr Published: August 02, 2003

Correction Appended A top aide to the Assembly speaker was indicted today on charges that he raped a 22-year-old legislative aide twice in her apartment after accompanying her home from a bar two months ago. The indictment was handed up seven weeks after the aide, J. Michael Boxley, was arrested in the Capitol and led out in handcuffs. An Albany County grand jury charged Mr. Boxley with two counts of first-degree rape, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison, and two counts of third-degree rape, each carrying a maximum term of 16 months to 4 years. The indictments allege that Mr. Boxley, 43, counsel to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, had sex twice with the young woman against her will before dawn on the morning of June 10 after a night of drinking with colleagues at a local club. Peter M. Torncello, the assistant district attorney handling the case, said the prosecution would try to prove that the woman, who has not been identified by the police, could not consent to sex because she was physically helpless at the time: asleep, drunk, drugged, or all three.
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The indictment also alleges that the woman cried out, ''Get off me'' and ''Stop! You are hurting me,'' during the incident. A law enforcement official said last month that the woman's roommate had heard some of what happened in the woman's bedroom. Mr. Boxley's lawyer, E. Stewart Jones Jr., was out of town and did not return telephone calls from a reporter tonight. He has said Mr. Boxley is innocent. ''The truth is there was no crime committed, no rape, no sexual assault or forcible conduct of any kind,'' Mr. Jones told The Associated Press last week. ''This whole thing is absolute nonsense.'' Mr. Boxley has been on an unpaid leave of absence from his $130,395-a-year post since his arrest. Before then, he was involved in almost every major legislative negotiation and played a role in the political operation of the Assembly's Democratic majority. This is not the first time Mr. Boxley has been accused of a crime. In 2001, Elizabeth Crothers, an aide to a Republican assemblyman, lodged an internal complaint with the Assembly accusing Mr. Boxley of sexually assaulting her in his apartment after offering her a ride home from a bar. Ms. Crothers never filed a criminal complaint with the police, however, and an investigation by an Assembly staff lawyer found that Mr. Boxley had done nothing wrong. After the rape allegation this year, Ms. Crothers publicly criticized Mr. Silver, saying the Assembly's unwillingness to punish Mr. Boxley had created a situation that made another attack likely. But Assembly officials said they stopped their investigation only after Ms. Crothers had dropped her complaint. Mr. Boxley and Ms. Crothers also reached an agreement not to sue one

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Silver's Counsel Is Indicted on Rape Charges Involving Albany...

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/02/nyregion/silver-s-counsel-i...

another. Mr. Boxley, who is free on $25,000 bail, will be arraigned in State Supreme Court in Albany next week, Mr. Torncello said. Correction: August 12, 2003, Tuesday An article on Aug. 2 about the rape indictment of J. Michael Boxley, counsel to New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, misstated the outcome of an internal Assembly investigation into a previous allegation of sexual assault against Mr. Boxley, for which no formal police complaint was filed. (The error was repeated in an article on Friday.) The investigation was terminated without any finding of guilt or innocence; it did not clear him.
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