Pennsylvania State Legislator Is Forced to Work With Her Alleged Abuser, Another GOP Legislator
For the past few years, Pennsylvania state representative Tarah Toohil has been forced to work alongside the man she says physically abused her. Toohil dated fellow Republican legislator Nick Miccarelli several years ago; she ended the relationship in 2012. According to reporting from the New York Times, because Miccarelli frequently carried a concealed firearm with him to work, Toohil was too scared to go public with allegations that he’d kicked her, pinned her to a wall in the Capitol building by her neck, and threatened her life while holding a gun.
In February, emboldened in part by the #MeToo movement, Toohil decided to file a formal complaint against Miccarelli with House leadership. In March, she obtained a legal order of protection against him. Her account of his behavior was bolstered by accusations from another of Miccarelli’s former girlfriends, a political consultant who says he raped her when she ended their relationship in 2014.
Republican leaders in the Pennsylvania legislature asked Miccarelli to resign in March, after a House investigation deemed the two women’s stories credible. He refused. Toohil occupies a desk just 10 seats away from Miccarelli’s in the statehouse where, every day, she is shadowed by a security guard.
To comply with the restraining order, Miccarelli, who says the allegations are untrue, has given up his guns. With a bodyguard at her side, he is unlikely to harm Toohil in the workplace. But his insistence on sticking out the rest of his term—he has said he won’t seek re-election this November—seems as much a way to flaunt his power in the faces of his accusers as it is a financial decision. (When he leaves the House at the end of his term, he will have served for 10 years, making him eligible for a pension and a lifetime of health care benefits for his entire family.) Miccarelli’s spokesperson has called Toohil and her fellow accuser “vengeful,” saying they are “two vindictive women” who “seem hellbent on destroying the guy’s entire life.” Even though a judge saw fit to grant Toohil a yearslong order of protection and Miccarelli’s own party was convinced enough by the House investigation to call for his resignation, he doesn’t have to go anywhere.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/a-pennsylvania-state-legislator-is-forced-to-work-with-her-alleged-abuser-another-gop-legislator.html
