Presidential hopeful Herman Cain has called the recent charges of sexual assault levied against him by a former National Restaurant Association employee “false” and “inaccurate.”
The denials only helped fuel the Twitter stream where the hashtag #cainwreck took off, becoming a top trending topic in the U.S., collecting more than 1,200 mentions in less than 20 minutes.
“This campaign is dead, but the body is still twitching,” tweeted @goldietaylor.
“This guy is toast,” tweeted Mario Torres (@marioleontorres). “That press conference might as well have been a goodbye speech.”
Cain, who has been the GOP front runner for the last few weeks, claimed that any sort of sexual interaction with accuser Sharon Bialek “simply didn’t happen.”
“I have never acted inappropriately with anyone. Period. I saw Ms. Allred [Bialek’s high profile lawyer Gloria Allred] and her client yesterday in that news conference for the very first time,” Cain said during a press conference today at 5 p.m. ET. “I don’t even know who this woman is. Secondly, I didn’t recognize the name at all.”
During his 25 minute speech, Cain also added that he would take a lie detector test to prove his innocence, would not be backing out of the presidential race and that a candidate’s character should come under a microscope.
Cain also addressed accusations made by Karen Kraushaar, a woman who claims to have been sexually harassed by the presidential hopeful on more than one occasion, reported the New York Times.
“When she made her accusations, they were found to be baseless and she could not find anyone to corroborate her story,” Cain said. He also added that the only interaction with Kraushaar was when he made a gesture toward her, comparing her height to that of his wife Gloria.
Photo by Gage Skidmore
