Melissa Osborn, an employee at the Michigan Credit Union League, is now the third woman to go public with accusations of unwanted touching or inappropriate comments from state Sen. Peter Lucido (R).
According to Crain’s Detroit Business, Osborn described an interaction at a government affairs conference last May when Lucido grabbed her lower back while looking her up and down and commenting on how good her dress looked on her.
Osborn’s account is eerily similar to state Sen. Mallory McMorrow’s (D), one of Lucido’s peers, who alleged that he similarly touched her lower back while observing her body and making crude insinuations about her 2018 electoral victory.
Michigan Advance reporter Allison Donahue opened the floodgates of accusations in recent weeks, publishing a first-person account of an interaction with Lucido when she tried to interview him for a story. Instead, she recalls that he made a lewd comment about how a crowd of high school boys he was with could “have some fun” with her.
The first two accusations already had been referred to the Senate Business Office for an investigation. McMorrow reportedly said that a fourth woman came to her with similar allegations as well, and that she reported that one and Osborn’s to the SBO.
“I feel like there’s this idea that if you’re a person in a position of power, that you’re untouchable,” McMorrow told Crain’s, adding that she says a “pattern” of behavior in Lucido’s feeling an entitlement to women’s bodies. “That’s compounded by if you’re in a safe district, you’re in the majority party and you’ve built this caricature around you.”
