Last week a letter to GOP lieutenant governor candidate and former state Senate President Pro Tem John F. Kennedy from Cobb County attorney Drew Ashby demanded the release of confidential records regarding potential sexual harassment claims against him. Ashby wrote to Kennedy specifically requesting that he release a former state Senate staffer identified by her initials “from all secrecy obligations that they owe to you.”
Attorney Barbara Marschalk, who represents the unnamed Senate staffer, sent a hard hitting letter to Ashby demanding that he “cease and desist, effective immediately, from using my client’s name, initials or any other identifying reference to my client in any communication with the public, the press… or anyone else.”
Marschalk continues: “You write the letter in such a way as to give the impression that my client consents to your allegations or actions. My client does not. Your conduct is reprehensible and it ends now.”
Ashby’s letter suspiciously surfaced on the eve of the June 16th runoff election where Kennedy (who finished first in a multi-candidate May 19th primary) faces off against GOP state Sen. Greg Dolezal.
Marschalk believes Ashby is trying to influence the outcome of an election. “As terrible as that objective is,” she says, “my client is not a tool for it.”
In summation, Marschalk bluntly emphasizes:
· No misconduct complaint was ever filed against Kennedy.
· No confidentiality agreement exists.
· No relationship existed beyond a professional one.
· Ashby’s allegations and implications are false.
