A GOP strategist who accused CPAC leader Matt Schlapp of sexual misconduct and defamation in January is himself now the target of a sexual battery claim—though charges were never filed and he tells The Daily Beast a recording exists that clears his name.
Carlton Huffman, 39, is the man at the center of the allegations, with a judge recently ruling that he must stay away from a former housemate in Raleigh, North Carolina, for one year after she claimed Huffman performed unwanted sex acts on her and another woman, according to court documents reviewed by The Daily Beast.
The woman claimed the assault happened overnight on Valentine’s Day, which was just the second day Huffman’s accuser, a 19-year-old woman, had lived with him in a Raleigh apartment.
A yearlong order of protection was issued Feb. 27 for Huffman’s former housemate. The second woman, who is 22 years old, was granted a 10-day order of protection but “a judge then dismissed her complaint,” The Washington Post reported.
Speaking by phone, Huffman told The Daily Beast on Friday that a recording exists of both women telling authorities the sexual contact was consensual, with them never saying “no” or “stop” during the act.
“I’m innocent of any criminal wrongdoing,” Huffman told The Daily Beast. “The Raleigh Police Department thoroughly investigated the matter and said no crime was committed and the case was, and is, closed.”
The Raleigh Police Department did not immediately respond to questions left in a voicemail, but the Post reported that police in Raleigh labeled the case as investigated and closed, with no pending charges for Huffman.
The women said they felt unsafe in Huffman’s apartment because he kept a gun there, the Post reported.
The older accuser told the Post she was offended by Huffman’s portrayal of himself as a sexual battery victim in recent months.
The accusations came to light a few weeks after Huffman filed a lawsuit in Virginia alleging sexual battery and defamation by Schlapp, who has denied all claims.
Huffman, a former Herschel Walker aide, anonymously sued Schlapp in January seeking $9.4 million in damages. An Alexandria Circuit Court judge ruled this week that Huffman must identify himself in order for the lawsuit to proceed, and he obliged on Wednesday.
Huffman alleges that he was assaulted by Schlapp in October when the conservative organizer was in Georgia for a Walker campaign rally. He claimed in the suit that Schlapp groped his “genital area in a sustained fashion” as he drove him from Atlanta bars to his hotel near the airport.
“It’s to my shame that I didn’t say anything,” Huffman previously told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I wish I had said, ‘What the hell—stop!’’
Huffman claimed that Schlapp later asked him to join him in his hotel room but he declined.
Schlapp has acknowledged that he and Huffman went to two bars together on Oct. 19 but denies the rest of Huffman’s story.
“We are confident that when his full record is brought to light in a court of law, we will prevail,” a spokesman for Schlapp, Mark Corallo, told the Journal-Constitution.
