Republican congressman accused of having sex in NYC bar after 'disappearing into bathroom with a woman for a quicky'

Republican congressman accused of having sex in NYC bar after 'disappearing into bathroom with a woman for 15 minutes'

• Michael Grimm was seen 'getting close to a female friend' in a Brooklyn bar
• Witnesses said the pair disappeared into the bathroom for 17 minutes
• Congressman denies the claims and says they are politically motivated

By Hugo Gye
PUBLISHED: 12:10 EST, 16 October 2013 | UPDATED: 15:31 EST, 16 October 2013

Claim: U.S. Congressman Michael Grimm is alleged to have had sex in the bathroom of a bar

A Republican congressman has been accused of having sex in the bathroom of a bar after spending more than 15 minutes locked away with a female friend.
Michael Grimm, who represents Staten Island and part of Brooklyn in New York, was apparently seen behaving intimately with the woman before following her into the toilet.
The 43-year-old denies the claims, saying they are an 'absurd distortion' invented by his political opponents.
Two weeks ago, Mr Grimm spent an evening with a friend at The Owl's Head in Bay Ridge, a Brooklyn neighbourhood which falls within his congressional district.
The pair appeared very close, witnesses told Brooklyn Magazine, with the congressman repeatedly placing his hand in his companion's back pocket.
At one point they went into the bar's only toilet and stayed there for 17 minutes, a bystander told the New York Post.
They were apparently locked in the small room for so long that other bar patrons started talking about them, with one saying: 'I think he was in there having sex.'
'It just so happened a couple people [at the bar] knew exactly who he was and kept an eye on him,' a Democratic source told the Post.

'They said Grimm was in there with a girl for 17 minutes. I guess they were timing him. They were absolutely appalled.'

A witness told Brooklyn Magazine: 'I was surprised someone so sleazy could be a congressman.'

Denial: Mr Grimm, a Republican, claims that the rumour was invented by his Democratic rivals

Mr Grimm, a former FBI agent who was first elected to Congress in 2010, was briefly married in the mid-1990s but is now single.
He denied the claim that he had had sex in a bar, saying in a statement: 'This never happened and I will not dignify this absurd distortion of the facts with a response, except to to say that this is nothing more than a typical Democrat-led smear campaign.'
A source close to the congressman told the Post that the pair were 'old friends', and that he went into the bathroom to 'check on her' because she was distressed.
The owner of the bar told Politicker that he was not present at the time of the alleged incident and did not know anything about it, adding: 'I've never seen him before.'