Joe Biden accused of Sexual Assault

Joseph Biden has been accused by a former Nevada state assemblywoman of touching and kissing her at a 2014 campaign event for Democrats.

In an essay published on Friday by New York Magazine’s The Cut, the former assemblywoman, Lucy Flores, a Democrat, said she was 35 at the time of her encounter with Mr Biden, who was then vice president. Mr Biden, she wrote, had agreed to come to a rally to help her fledgeling campaign for lieutenant governor of Nevada.

Ms Flores wrote that at first, she had been “grateful and flattered.” But as she was preparing to take the stage, she said, she “felt two hands on my shoulders” and “froze.”

“Why is the vice-president of the United States touching me?” she recalled wondering.

“I felt him get closer to me from behind,” she continued. “He leaned further in and inhaled my hair. I was mortified.”

Then, she added: “He proceeded to plant a big slow kiss on the back of my head. My brain couldn’t process what was happening. I was embarrassed. I was shocked. I was confused.”

Reacting to the allegations, Joe Biden says he doesn’t recall planting an awkward kiss on the back of the head of Lucy Flores, also stating that neither he or his staff had any idea she felt uncomfortable at the time.

The ex-VP says Flores has every right to share her own recollection of events and “that it is a change for better in our society that she has the opportunity to do so.”