Who is Julie Swetnick, third woman to accuse Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct

Credit: DaytonDailyNews

A third woman has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, saying Kavanaugh was a heavy drinker in the early 1980s who became aggressive and inappropriate when drunk.
The woman, Julie Swetnick, presented a three-page sworn declaration to the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying she witnessed Kavanaugh "consistently engage in excessive drinking and inappropriate contact of a sexual nature with women in the early 1980s."

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Swetnick said she saw Kavanaugh at parties where women were inappropriately touched, made “disoriented” with alcohol and/or drugs, and then raped, often by several males at the parties.

Swetnick joins two other women who have publicly accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct and assault. The incidents Swetnick and the two other women -- Dr. Christine Ford and Deborah Ramirez -- have describes were alleged to have happened decades ago when Kavanaugh and the women were in high school and college.

>>Who is Christine Blasey Ford, Brett Kavanaugh's accuser? 

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Kavanaugh and Ford are set to testify Thursday about an incident Ford claims happened when she and Kavanaugh were at a Maryland home in 1982. According to Ford, Kavanaugh forced her into a room, threw her down on the bed, groped her and tried to get her clothes off.

>>Kavanaugh hearing: What time, what channel, who is testifying, how to watch 

Kavanaugh has denied Ford ’s charges.

On Wednesday, Kavanaugh also denied Swetnick’s charges, calling the allegations “ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone.”

“I don’t know who this (Swetnick) is and this never happened,” Kavanaugh wrote in the statement.

Who is the latest accuser and how is she connected with Kavanaugh?

Here’s what we know about Swetnick:

  • She is 55 years old.
  • She is from Montgomery County, Maryland, and graduated from Gaithersburg High School in 1980.
  • She later graduated from the University of Maryland.
  • She is "one of the first 100 women in the world to achieve a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineering Certification," according to the declaration she provided the committee.
  • She was employed as a senior production webmaster at the State Department.
  • She was also a senior production webmaster at the Department of Justice.
  • She held similar jobs with the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, according to Heavy.com.
  • Swetnick said in her sworn declaration to the committee that she holds "active clearances" for her work with the federal government. A background check is required to hold an active clearance.

>>Vote on SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh set for Friday by Senate committee

  • In her statement to the committee, she also accused Mark Judge, a friend and classmate of Kavanaugh's, of taking part in the assaults. Via his lawyer, Judge has denied any claims he was part of any sexual assault.
  • Swetnick said in her statement that she met Kavanaugh and Judge in the early 1980s and attended at least 10 house parties in the Washington, D.C., area between 1981-1983 that Kavanaugh and Judge also attended.
  • She said that Kavanaugh and Judge, along with others, would try to spike the punch or women's drinks at parties in an effort to get women intoxicated so they could be taken advantage of.
  • In her statement, she said she was gang-raped at a party in which Kavanaugh was present. She did not say if Kavanaugh took part in the assault.
Photo released by lawyer Michael Avenatti with an image of Julie Swetnick who has submitted allegations about Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh. Tweet from @MichaelAvenatti "Here is a picture of my client Julie Swetnick. She is courageous, brave and honest. We ask that her privacy and that of her family be respected."

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