Is Al Gore a “Crazed Sex Poodle?”

 

WNY Truthers and Infowars.com
June 24, 2010

As should be expected, the National Enquirer jumped on the story.

From The Smoking Gun:

JUNE 24–In a bizarre statement to police, the Oregon woman who claims that Al Gore fondled and groped her during a massage session described the former Vice President as a giggling “crazed sex poodle” who gave a “come hither” look before pouncing on her in a Portland hotel suite. In a taped January 2009 interview with cops, the 54-year-old woman, a licensed masseuse whose name has been redacted from police records, read from a lengthy prepared statement that detailed her alleged October 2006 encounter with Gore at the Hotel Lucia. Excerpts from the Portland Police Bureau transcript of the 2009 interview can be found on the following pages.

 

 

 

Portland woman says Al Gore groped her in hotel room

Maxine Bernstein, The Oregonian

Posted:  06/23/2010 3:32 PM

Police reports

» Read the Portland Police Bureau reports

A Portland massage therapist gave local police a detailed statement last year alleging that former Vice President Al Gore groped her, kissed her and made unwanted sexual advances during a late-night massage session in October 2006 in a suite at the upscale Hotel Lucia.
The woman told investigators that she informed two friends and kept the clothes she wore that night, including her black pants with stains on them. But Portland police didn’t contact any of the woman’s friends, obtain the potential evidence or interview anyone at the hotel, records show.
"The case was not investigated any further because detectives concluded there was insufficient evidence to support the allegations," the Portland Police Bureau said in a prepared statement Wednesday, responding to inquiries from all over the world after the National Enquirer broke the story on its website.
In her detailed Jan. 8, 2009, statement to a Portland sexual assault investigator, the woman said she was called to the hotel about 10:30 p.m. Oct. 24, 2006, to provide a massage for Gore, who was registered under the name "Mr. Stone." Once inside his ninth-floor suite, she said he pushed her hand to his groin, fondled her buttocks and breasts, tongue-kissed her and threw her down on the bed as she tried to thwart his advances.
She also said Gore had finished a beer and opened a bottle of Grand Marnier while she was in the room.
While the Police Bureau considers it a closed case, it said it would reopen it if new evidence is received.
Portland police spokeswoman Detective Mary Wheat said police didn’t go to the hotel or talk to the woman’s friends because it wouldn’t help prove or disprove the woman’s allegations.
"We’re not disputing Al Gore was in the hotel room with this woman," Wheat said. "The two people in that room were Mr. Gore and this woman. If a bellhop came in and saw something, that would be different."
The Multnomah County district attorney’s office was aware that the woman’s attorney filed a complaint with police about two months after the encounter, but the woman didn’t show up for three scheduled interviews with police investigators. At that time, police were told the woman didn’t want to proceed with a criminal case and would pursue a civil case instead.
Multnomah County District Attorney Michael Schrunk said Wednesday that his office was not informed that Portland police had taken another statement from the massage therapist in 2009 and only received those reports once the National Enquirer story broke.
"If the complainant and the Portland Police Bureau wish to pursue the possibility of a criminal prosecution, additional investigation by the Bureau will be necessary and will be discussed with the Portland Police Bureau," Schrunk said in a prepared release.

Gore family spokeswoman Kalee Kreider said the former vice president has no comment. Gore and his wife, Tipper, announced June 1 they were separating.
The 54-year-old massage therapist, who lives in Southeast Portland, refused to talk to a reporter from The Oregonian when approached Wednesday afternoon. She emerged from her home about 4:30 p.m. wearing a large floppy hat and sunglasses and was accompanied by a young man, who was carrying a bag. The two drove away in a car with Washington license plates.
According to a lengthy transcript of the woman’s Jan. 8, 2009, statement to a Portland detective, the therapist said she arrived in the suite about 11 p.m. Earlier that evening, Gore addressed a near-capacity crowd in the Rose Garden’s Theater of the Clouds, telling the audience that man-made global climate change is the most important moral challenge of our time. She said Gore changed into a bathrobe, spoke of his grueling travel schedule and need to relax and told her to call him "Al."
While giving Gore an abdominal massage, she said he demanded that she go lower and soon grabbed her right hand and shoved it under the sheet.
"I felt like I was dancing on the edge of a razor," she told Detective Molly Daul.
She tried to use an acupressure technique to relax Gore and thought she may have nearly put him to sleep. She went into the bathroom to wash up and came out to pack up.
That’s when, she says, Gore wrapped her in an "inescapable embrace" and fondled her back, buttocks and breasts as she was trying to break down her massage table.
She called him a "crazed sex poodle" and tried to distract him, pointing out a box of Moonstruck chocolates on a nearby table. He went for the chocolates and then offered her some, cornering her, fondling her and shoving his tongue in her mouth to french kiss as he pressed against her.
She said he tried to pull her camisole strap down.
She said she told him to stop it. "I was distressed, shocked and terrified."
She said she was intimidated by his physical size, calling him "rotund," described his "violent temper, dictatorial, commanding attitude" — what she termed a contrast from his "Mr. Smiley global-warming concern persona."
Later, she said, he tried to lure her into the bedroom to hear pop star Pink’s "Dear Mr. President" on his iPod dock. She said Gore sat on one end of the bed and motioned for her to join him.
Suddenly, she said, he "flipped me on my back, threw his whole body face down over a top me, pinning me down."
She said she loudly protested, "Get off me, you big lummox!"
The therapist said she injured her left leg and knee and sought medical care for several months.
The therapist later told detectives she did not call the police because she was afraid she wouldn’t be believed. "I deeply feared being made into a public spectacle and my work reputation being destroyed," she said.
As it was, she said, even friends of hers who had voted for Gore didn’t necessarily support her. She did call the Portland Women’s Crisis Line, which encouraged her to call police.
She told detectives last year that she was not out for money but only wants "justice."
"He should not get a free pass merely because of his position. People in power are not to be given a license to behave in ways that the rest of us are not."

Randall Vogt, a Pearl District attorney who specializes in sexual misconduct cases, said he represented the massage therapist in 2006. "That file was closed and put to bed and forgotten," Vogt said. "She and I parted on friendly terms as best I can recall." He was not aware that his former client reactivated her claims against Gore last year.
Wheat said police didn’t investigate the woman’s 2009 statement further because "they didn’t feel there was any additional evidence that would change what they saw in 2006." That’s also why the police didn’t consult with the district attorney’s office about the 2009 statement, she said. Wheat added that the woman received a lot of attention from police and a victim’s advocate, who made sure she had counseling.
In 2007 or 2008, then-Portland Tribune reporter Nick Budnick made a public records request and obtained the Portland police report, but the newspaper did not run a story.
Mark Garber, the Tribune’s editor-in-chief, said the woman was not willing to talk on the record or press charges and the paper considered the time lapse between the incident and when the paper received the police report. "In the end, we decided not to proceed with a story that we could not document," Garber said.
The statute of limitations for third-degree sex abuse, which is the classification Portland police gave to the complaint in 2006 and 2007, is four years after the commission of the crime. However, if the accused is not an inhabitant or usually a resident in the state, then the statute of limitations is extended for a maximum of three years. So, in this case, the statute of limitations would not run out until 2013. No civil suit had been filed.
— Maxine Bernstein
Helen Jung, Kimberly Wilson and Lynne Terry contributed to this report.

 

 

 

Al and Tipper Gore to separate after 40 years… I Wonder Why???

Published: Tuesday, June 01, 2010, 9:15 AM     Updated: Tuesday, June 01, 2010, 9:45 AM

The Associated Press

AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File

In this Jan. 20, 2009 file photo, former Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper, listen to the national anthem at the conclusion of inaugural ceremonies on Capitol in Washington. Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, are separating after 40 years of marriage.NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, are separating after 40 years of marriage.

According to an e-mail circulated among the couple’s friends and obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday, the Gores said it was "a mutual and mutually supportive decision that we have made together following a process of long and careful consideration."

Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider confirmed the statement came from the Gores, but declined to comment further.
Al Gore lost the 2000 presidential election to Republican George W. Bush. He has since campaigned worldwide to draw attention to climate change, which in 2007 led to a Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar for the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."
Tipper Gore is known for her advocacy on mental health issues.
– The Associated Press

 

 

 

National Enquirer says it did not pay for story about Al Gore, Portland massage therapist

Published: Thursday, June 24, 2010, 2:52 PM     Updated: Thursday, June 24, 2010, 3:38 PM

Lynne Terry, The Oregonian

The Associated Press

In this Dec. 14 photo, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore gestures as he joins cabinet ministers from Nordic countries for discussion on Greenland’s ice sheet at the UN Climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark. A Portland massage therapist accused former Vice President Al Gore of "unwanted sexual contact" at a hotel during an October 2006 visit, but no charges were filed due to lack of evidence, law officials said Wednesday.

The National Enquirer refuted rampant reports today that it paid $1 million for a story accusing former Vice President Al Gore of sexually groping a massage therapist at a high-end Portland hotel in October 2006.
In fact, the tabloid said it didn’t even shell out a dime.
"We did not pay the therapist or any representative of hers," editor-in-chief Tony Frost said in a statement. "In fact, she was unaware the story was being published."
The statement said the tabloid initially heard about the story through a tip. "We had to do a great deal of work to establish that the information was correct and to determine the validity of certain documents that our reporters later discovered.”
The story, which the tabloid initially reported and was covered in The Oregonian, details a statement the therapist gave to Portland police in January 2009. The therapist, now 54, told investigators that she was called to Hotel Lucia about 10:30 p.m. on Oct. 24, 2006 for a massage session with Gore. She said he pushed her hand to his groin, fondled her buttocks and breasts, thrust his tongue in her mouth and threw her down on the bed and climbed on top of her as she fought him off.
A report from Portland police said the woman approached them June 3, asking for a copy of her statement and whether she could edit it. She said she was taking her case to the media.

Reports on websites from Vanity Fair and People magazine to theTelegraph in Britain say the therapist, who is not named in the police report and declined to comment to an Oregonian reporter, was paid $1 million for her story.
The Enquirer said its reporters did the gum shoe reporting themselves.
“The Enquirer team did all the things investigative journalists usually do — made copious phone calls, knocked on numerous doors and met with sources plus individuals with specific knowledge of this matter in the Portland area,” the statement said.
The tabloid did not say whether or not it paid anyone in relation to the story.
The statement said the tabloid is working on a follow-up, with information about Gore’s affairs from Portland and Los Angeles to Washington D.C. and Tennessee, his home state.

 

 

 

Neighbors say woman who has accused Al Gore is friendly, honest, spiritual

Published: Thursday, June 24, 2010, 2:22 PM     Updated: Thursday, June 24, 2010, 3:45 PM

Shane Dixon Kavanaugh, The Oregonian

Brent Wojahn/The Oregonian

This is the apartment complex where the woman who has accused Al Gore lives in Southeast Portland.

Neighbors of the Portland massage therapist who has accused Al Gore of groping her said today that the woman is outgoing and known for striking up conversations. She loves birds and has a small dog, they said.
"She’s a very spiritual person," said Pepe Moscoso, an artist and photographer who lives in the same apartment complex in Southeast Portland. "We’d talk about the Zodiac and other astrological things."
He described her as "a very honest person."
She always talks to him and his wife when they’re walking outside with their daughters. She told him and other neighbors that she was studying acupuncture.
The woman has declined to comment and doesn’t appear to be at her apartment today. She said in a 2009 statement to police that the former vice president made unwanted sexual advances when she went to his room at an upscale Portland hotel to give him a massage in 2006. Gore was in town to make a speech.
The Oregonian is not naming the woman because she has reported an alleged sexual assault.
Neighbor Rusty Pranger said he learned about the accusation this morning when watching "Democracy Now!" a syndicated progressive TV show, and he thought at the time: "I know a massage therapist," but didn’t make the connection until he learned it from a reporter.
The two have regular conversations when they run into each other outside the apartment, Pranger said. "She’s friendly enough to stop and say hi to you on the sidewalk," he said.
She tries to speak Russian phrases to some of their immigrant neighbors, he said. The well-kept three-story complex has dozens of apartments in separate buildings with a courtyard, fountain and flower-filled landscaping.
Pranger said he didn’t vote in 2000, but probably would have voted for Gore. "He’s supposed to be the good guy," Pranger said. "He’s Mr. Environment. He’s trying to save the planet. It’s sad to think, ‘Well, there’s another one" in a string of politicians caught in scandals.
Larisa Zubanova lives in the same building as the woman.
"She’s nice," Zubanova said. "She always asks me how’s my baby."

 

 

 

Sexual assault accusation against Al Gore ripples online

Published: Thursday, June 24, 2010, 12:36 PM     Updated: Thursday, June 24, 2010, 3:42 PM

The Oregonian

In an editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal, Former Vice President Al Gore makes a cogent argument that long-term incentives should be the antidote to the short-term greed that created our current economic woes.
But numerous reader comments at the end of the WSJ piece are focused on another story entirely:
Sexual assault allegations made by a Portland masseuse against Gore.
The Oregonian’s story, by reporter Maxine Bernstein, lays out the complete details, including a detailed statement last year alleging that former Vice President Al Gore groped her, kissed her and made unwanted sexual advances during a late-night massage session in October 2006 in a suite at the upscale Hotel Lucia.
Vanity Fair magazine blogs this afternoon about the allegations, referring to a British newspaper’s report that the unnamed massage therapist was paid $1 million for her story by the National Enquirer.
The Washington Post bylined its own story on the case, the paper’s third highest emailed article of the morning.
The National Enquirer, which broke the news Wednesday by revealing its cover, still hasn’t released its original story. But it followed up with excerpts from the transcribed interview of the victim by police, three years after the alleged assault.

 

 

 

The 40-year itch: The Gores’ divorce opens doors for individual pursuits, pleasures

Published: Saturday, June 12, 2010, 8:07 AM

Guest Columnist

The Associated Press/1999Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper, pictured here during a forum in Iowa City, Iowa, have kept quiet about the reasons for their break-up after 40 years of marriage.

By DEIRDRE BAIR
There’s an old French expression I found useful when I wrote a book about couples who divorced after long marriages: "I wasn’t holding the candle." It means that I couldn’t know what happened between the two people in a marriage, so how could I possibly know why they split?
That hasn’t stopped speculation about Al and Tipper Gore, who are behaving with grace and dignity as they keep to themselves their reasons for ending 40 years of marriage. Public reaction has followed a pattern, beginning with shock and disbelief: "They seemed like the ideal couple, so perfect together." Outrage came next: "Was it all a sham, especially that kiss on the convention stage?" And finally fear: "Are all marriages doomed to wither and die — and will mine be among them?"
But such questions expose just a few widespread but unrealistic assumptions about late-life divorce. Divorce lawyers tell me the fastest-growing segment of their clientele is the middle-aged and elderly. And their divorces do not all that often involve husbands running off with someone new, leaving wives alone and bereft. A 2004 AARP survey of 1,147 people who divorced in their 40s, 50s or 60s found that women initiated late-life divorces more often than men did, and if the divorced women wanted a new partner, they usually found one.
For my book, I interviewed 126 men and 184 women who divorced after being married 20 to 60-plus years. And what surprised me most was the courage they showed as they left the supposed security of marriage. To them, divorce meant not failure and shame, but opportunity.
"People change and forget to tell each other," writer Lillian Hellman said. Still, many couples seem to have an "aha!" moment when they realize that it’s time to split up. No matter how comfortably situated they are, how lovely their home and successful their children, they divorce because they cannot go on living in the same old rut with the same old person.
Men and women I interviewed insisted they did not divorce foolishly or impulsively. Most of them mentioned "freedom." Another word I heard a lot was "control"; people wanted it for themselves for the rest of their lives. Women had grown tired of taking care of house, husband and grown children; men were tired of working to support wives who they felt did not appreciate them and children who did not respect them. Women and men alike wanted time to find out who they were.
One spouse might have wanted to keep working while the other wanted to retire. Often, there was an emotional void; one would say that the other "doesn’t see me, doesn’t know who I am," while the other hadn’t a clue: "I thought everything was just fine; we never argued, we don’t fight." One grew disenchanted with the wrinkled person across the dinner table and wanted someone new and exciting.
I talked to men who were serial marry-ers with trophy wives they abandoned, as one of them put it, the minute the woman "got broody and wanted babies." And I found women who wanted a man who would take them dining and dancing, but then go home to his own bed and leave them alone until the next party.
Many stories ended with some rendition of, "It’s my time and if I don’t take it now, I never will." No matter whether they had spent years gearing up for divorce or decided on the spur of the moment after one minor disagreement too many, few had regrets. Men who wanted new companionship easily found it, and women who wanted new partners had them within two years.
Divorce is easier now. Our retirement years are longer and healthier. Both men and women often have enough money to make changes. And the stigma of divorce has long since faded. A century ago, Elizabeth Cady Stanton called it a "social earthquake." But several decades later, Margaret Mead thought every woman needed three husbands: one for youthful sex, one for security while raising children and one for joyful companionship in old age. In the 21st century, Margaret Drabble, the British novelist, calls life after divorce "the third age." The heroine of her novel "The Seven Sisters" says, "Our dependents have died or matured. For good and ill, we are free."
So let us not feel shocked or sad about the end of Al and Tipper Gore’s marriage. Let us instead wish them well, and hope that they might enjoy their third age, individually and in peace.
Copyright: 2010, The New York Times
Deirdre Bair is the author of "Calling It Quits: Late-Life Divorce and Starting Over."

Exclusive: Al Gore Cheats with Larry David’s Ex

June 15, 2010 2:35 PM

Al Gore‘s split from wife Tipper after 40 years of marriage was a shock to everyone who thought theirs was the ideal marriage. Now Star can exclusively reveal that the former Vice President was having an affair withLarry David‘s ex-wife — for the past two years!

In the June 28 issue of Star, on sale Wednesday, we report that Al and Tipper’s breakup didn’t come as much of a surprise to one Hollywood player — Laurie David. Star has learned that Al has been having an affair with Laurie, who divorced Seinfeld creator and Curb Your Enthusiasm star Larry David in 2007 amidst reports she was cheating with the caretaker of their Martha’s Vineyard summer home.

“Al and Laurie went from friends to lovers," an insider tells Star. "It couldn’t be avoided."

The pair, who have been fighting for the environment for years and worked together on Al’s 2006 Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, fell hard for one another — and if Tipper had any clue.

 

Laurie David: Al Gore Affair Story Is ‘Completely Untrue’

Laurie David told the Huffington Post on Tuesday that a tabloid report that she is having an affair with Al Gore is an absolute lie.

"The story is completely untrue," David told Huffington Post. "It’s a total fabrication. I adore both Al and Tipper. I look at them both as family. And I have happily been in a serious relationship since my divorce."

Laurie and Larry David split in 2007.

Meanwhile a source close to the Gore family told Huffington Post, "Al and Tipper are still very close and spending together time this summer with their family."