Biden Accuser's Former Neighbor Corroborates Details of Sexual Assault Allegations
A woman who formerly lived next to Tara Reade has confirmed multiple details of the former senate staffer’s allegations against 2020 presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden.
In an interview with Business Insider, 60-year-old Lynda LaCasse said that Reade told her about the alleged assault in 1995 or 1996 while they were smoking on LaCasse’s front stoop in Morro Bay, California.
LaCasse, a Democrat, is a retired former emergency room clerk and medical staff coordinator for San Luis Obispo General Hospital, the publication reports.
“This happened, and I know it did because I remember talking about it,” LaCasse told Insider.
“I remember her saying, here was this person that she was working for and she idolized him,” LaCasse said. “And he kind of put her up against a wall. And he put his hand up her skirt and he put his fingers inside her. She felt like she was assaulted, and she really didn’t feel there was anything she could do.”
LaCasse said she does not remember all the details, but she remembers “the skirt” and “the fingers,” and that Reade was devastated.
Reade was crying as she told LaCasse the story, LaCasse told the publication.
“She was crying. She was upset. And the more she talked about it, the more she started crying. I remember saying that she needed to file a police report.”
Lorraine Sanchez, who worked alongside Reade in the mid-1990s for a California state senator, also told Insider that Reade had complained to her that her former Washington, D.C., boss had sexually harassed her and caused her to be fired after she complained.
Reade worked as a Senate staffer for Biden in 1993 and has accused the then-senator of kissing her, touching her, and penetrating her with his fingers without her consent.
Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, which has not responded to many requests for comment from the DCNF, has denied the assault and said it “absolutely did not happen.”
LaCasse and Reade lived next door to one another an apartment complex near the beach where their young daughters would swim together, causing the two mothers to form a bond, LaCasse told Insider.
The publication verified through publicly available records that Reade and LaCasse were, in fact, neighbors in the Morro Bay complex in 1995.
After she put her daughter to bed, LaCasse said she would occasionally sit on her front stoop and smoke cigarettes and that Reade would sometimes join her. On one of these nights, LaCasse said, Reade shared her story.
“We were talking about violent stories,” LaCasse said, “because I had a violent situation. We just started talking about things and she just told me about the senator that she had worked for and he put his hand up her skirt.”
Reade’s former neighbor adds that she understands that coming forward to corroborate Reade’s allegations against Biden “may have repercussions for me.”
But LaCasse emphasized that she will still be voting for Biden, and Insider notes that her social media shows a lengthy history of anti-Trump sentiment as well as favor for both Biden and former 2020 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
She also shared a link to a story about Reade’s allegations on Facebook in March with the caption, “this is my good friend Tara Reade, who was assaulted by Joe Biden in 1993.”
“I personally am a Democrat, a very strong Democrat,” she told Insider. “And I’m for Biden, regardless. But still I have to come out and say this.”
She says felt compelled to come forward with her corroboration as the Biden campaign denies Reade’s claims. “I have to support her just because that’s what happened. We need to stand up and tell the truth.”
LaCasse’s confirmation of details surrounding Reade’s allegations comes after video evidence obtained by the Media Research Center as well as a transcript obtained by the Intercept appear to show Reade’s mother calling into a CNN show and mentioning that her daughter had problems with a “prominent senator.”
Reade told the DCNF Friday that the voice in the video is her mother’s and that “hearing her voice made me cry.”
“I just heard audio, my mother died and hearing her voice made me cry. She was such a good mom and always watching out for me even now,” she said, adding that the video proves what she has been saying: “that I was forced out and wanted to come forward in 1993.”
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A version of this article appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website.
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