 Al Gore. (Keld Navntoft/Scanpix Denmark/REUTERS)
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Police in Portland, Oregon, say they looked into a complaint from a woman who says she was sexually assaulted by former U.S. vice-president Al Gore but didn't find enough evidence to support the allegations.
Police took the case public after the National Enquirer wrote a story about the alleged sexual assault, which the woman said happened at Portland's trendy Lucia Hotel on Oct. 24, 2006. The paper identified the masseuse as a 54-year-old woman.
The woman, a licensed massage therapist, said she was called to the hotel by staff to give a massage therapy session to a VIP guest, Al Gore, who was in the city as part of his Inconvenient Truth tour, according to her statement to police.
Portland police said the woman's lawyer first contacted them in December
2006 to report the unwanted sexual contact. Police attempted several times to interview the woman, but were told in January 2007 that she would be pursuing the case civilly and didn't want to speak with police. Police wrote a report, then cleared the case - standard procedure when the person involved declines to speak to police.
Last January, the woman approached Portland police again and said she wanted to give a statement about the alleged sexual abuse.
In her statement, she said the massage appointment began in Gore's hotel room. She said the former vice-president greeted her with a hug that she felt lasted a little too long.
Although the hug took her aback, she thought Gore simply had “a beneficent patriarch thing going on,” and tried to shrug it off, she said.
Gore asked to have a massage to his abdomen and adductor muscles, she told police.
She alleged that during the massage, Gore repeatedly insisted she touch his penis and that he repeatedly tried to touch her sexually when she tried to leave. She told him he was being “a crazed sex poodle,” she told police.
After hearing her statement, detectives didn't investigate further. They found there wasn't enough evidence to support the allegations, police said.
This month, the woman contacted Portland police, asking for a copy of her statement. She told them she would be taking her story to the press.
A Gore family spokeswoman has said Gore has no comment.
