Another top Democrat has been accused of physically assaulting a woman.
Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), the Democratic nominee for governor of Colorado, is being accused of physically assaulting a female ex-employee.
The incident dates back nearly twenty years, to June 1999, when Polis ran a company in Boulder called JPS International.
According to police records, Polis–whose legal name was Jared Polis Schutz at the time–said that he had been threatened by an employee, Patricia Hughes, who had submitted her resignation but called him that morning to say she had information to “go after” him if her exit from the company didn’t go smoothly.
According to the police report, Polis–recorded in the police report as “Mr. Schutz”–then drove to the office to confront Hughes and apparently assaulted her:
“After hanging up with the dispatcher, Ms. Hughes attempted to leave the office. Mr. Schutz physically blocked the door to prevent her from leaving. She moved toward him again, this time hitting him with one of her bags. Mr. Schutz then put both of his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back to prevent her from leaving,” according to the report filed by the officer who interviewed Polis.
Polis’s account of the extent of the physical contact differs from what Hughes told a different officer who interviewed her.
“Hughes then tried to leave and Schutz did not let her leave. Hughes said that he grabbed her and pushed her back into the office. Hughes said that when Schutz pushed her she was pushed back into a file cabinet, hurting her leg. Hughes said that she then said that she was going to call 911 and went to the phone. Hughes said that she tried calling 911 three times and twice Schutz hung the phone up. The third time Hughes got through,” according to Hughes’s interview with police.
The officer who interviewed Polis made other notes about Hughes’s appearance, as it related to the confrontation.
“I did observe two bruise marks on Ms. Hughes left inside bicep and a red welt on her thigh. She stated that the bruises on her arms were from Mr. Schutz ‘grabbing’ her with his right hand. The bruises were not conducive with Mr. Schutz’s statement that he pushed her shoulders. Nor were they conducive with Ms. Hughes’s statement of Mr. Schutz standing in front of her and grabbing her.”
“The welt on her thigh she said was from Mr. Schutz pushing her back when she attempted to leave. The welt was conducive with the a [sic] file cabinet in front of the door. There was also a key protruding from the upper right hand corner of the cabinet that could have produced the welt.”
Hughes was also granted a temporary restraining order against Polis two days later.
A year later, Polis put the incident behind him by legally changing his name from Jared Polis Schutz to Jared Polis.
The new allegations have rocked the Colorado gubernatorial race, where Polis faces Republican State Treasurer Walker Stapleton.
