Sex Charges Bring End to Brock Adams’ Career : Congress: Senator drops reelection bid after publication of allegations by 8 women of improprieties.

SEATTLE —  U.S. Sen. Brock Adams abruptly dropped his reelection campaign Sunday and announced an end to a 31-year political career after a newspaper published the stories of eight unnamed women who accused the Washington Democrat of 20 years of persistent physical assaults, sexual harassment and misbehavior.

One political activist told the Seattle Times she was drugged and raped. Two other accusers said they were molested by Adams after being drugged or offered a suspicious drink.

None of the cases were reported to the police and the newspaper said it departed from its standards in the use of unnamed sources because its 3 1/2-year investigation uncovered allegations that pointed to a pattern of “abuses of power and women.”

Seven of the eight accusers signed statements for the newspaper and are prepared to go to court if necessary, the Seattle Times said.

Appearing Sunday afternoon at a press conference here, Adams said, showing little emotion, that “this is the saddest day of my life. I have never harmed anyone.”

Adams is a former U.S. secretary of transportation who was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986. He was already facing a difficult reelection this year as the result of previously aired allegations he drugged and molested a young female aide in 1987, a highly publicized matter in which no charges were brought.

Although he had held his campaign’s largest fund-raiser on Friday, Adams’ political support seemed to melt away Sunday within hours of the appearance of the newspaper account.

The 65-year-old senator called the current allegations “politically inspired” and said he could not answer them because his accusers remained anonymous. Upon reading the story, Adams said, “I was horrified. That was not me. That was created out of whole cloth by people who hated me.”

Adams said he will not resign his seat but instead will serve out the remainder of his term and then bring to a conclusion his long career in public life.

The Seattle Times said the accusations it published in a long front-page account--and in accompanying detailed testimonials--were the result of women coming forth to tell their stories to the paper and others being tracked down by reporters. The paper said none of the eight accusers would allow their names to be disclosed. The women said the assaults and harassment occurred from the 1970s through 1987.

In an unusual front-page statement accompanying the story, Michael R. Fancher, executive editor of the newspaper, said it departed from its usual standards on the use of unnamed sources because it found the women credible and their independent stories of misdeeds fit a pattern.

In addition to the women who signed statements, the newspaper quoted other unnamed sources familiar with Adams as saying the senator had long been known by his staff and associates for aggressively kissing and handling women within his reach.

The most serious accusation was leveled by a former Democratic Party activist. In the early 1970s, when Adams was serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, the woman said she was invited to a Seattle bar by Adams. She recalled suffering from a cold and said Adams handed her two pills, calling them Vitamin C. She said she now believes they were some kind of drug.

The woman said Adams insisted on following her home and once inside pushed her on a couch and raped her. He departed, leaving her $200 to pay her way to a Democratic Party function across the state, the woman said.

She said she did not press charges.

“When a guy has that much power, there’s nothing you can do about it,” the woman told the newspaper. “It’s very traumatic when I talk about it. There’s no way to prove he did this to me.”

Another woman offered only a sketchy account of being offered champagne laced with a red liquid. She said she blacked out and awoke with Adams removing her clothes.

And a former secretary to Adams, then 23, said she was invited to play tennis with him when he was transportation secretary under President Carter. She said he later offered her a drink, in which there appeared to be a crushed pill at the bottom. She said she threw the drink away but Adams still kissed her against her will and groped her body before he was called away to a meeting at the White House.

Other accusers included a secretary who spent 10 years working with Adams, a lobbyist, two former aides and a secretary at a Seattle law firm at which Adams was a partner. These women described to the newspaper a persistent pattern of unwanted kisses and fondling.

The lobbyist, for instance, said she endured a public luncheon at which Adams ran his hand up her skirt and kept it on her thigh for 15 minutes while she discreetly tried to ward him off.

Many of women told friends or family about the attacks or their unpleasant encounters, and the newspaper said it verified the stories with these other sources. All of the accusers said that to one degree or another, they felt helpless to speak out publicly or report criminal behavior because of Adams’ stature.

Some of the women said their feelings changed after 1988. That was when the public learned that Kari Tupper, then 24, had reported to the police that on a night in 1987, she was drugged by Adams and awoke the next morning nude in the bed of his home in Washington, D.C., his hands groping her body.

Tupper was a family friend as well as an aide to Adams and said she had gone to Adams’ home to confront him after two years of unwanted sexual advances. Adams acknowledged that the young woman spent the night at his home but said she had come to seek his help in finding a new job. Adams said the young woman was not feeling well and accepted his invitation to spend the night in a separate bedroom. He denied any sexual assault.

Tupper waited a month after the evening to report her case to authorities. Prosecutors subsequently decided not to press charges.

The Tupper case, however, apparently emboldened other women who felt victimized by Adams to speak to the Seattle Times. The newspaper said it then launched its investigation. Among other information in its Sunday editions, the newspaper suggested that the sedative drug chloral hydrate, sold by prescription as a red syrup, may have been the drug involved in the Tupper incident.

Adams is married, and his wife of 40 years, Betty, has campaigned with him and sat at his side Sunday. She said, “The picture you have in this article is not my husband.”

Editor Fancher acknowledged in his statement that some Adams supporters believed the newspaper had been conducting a vendetta during its long investigation.

“That is absolutely not the case,” Fancher wrote. “Our only motive has been to serve readers by giving them complete, accurate and fair reporting and, to the extent humanly possible, to determine the truth of the matter. We firmly believe we have done that.”

The newspaper said several of the accusers had been contacted by Adams and his aides, including as recently as last week, urging them not to talk to the press.

Even before the latest disclosure, Adams had been a priority target for Republicans in the 1992 Senate races, and he faced a difficult Democratic primary challenge from former Congressman Mike Lowry of Seattle. Adams had been campaigning in recent months as a champion of women’s issues.