Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) spoke briefly with reporters on Tuesday about his estranged wife’s allegation that the congressman pushed her during an argument Saturday at their Florida home.
Earlier Tuesday, The Orlando Sentinel reported that a Florida judge had granted Grayson’s wife, Lolita Carson-Grayson, custody of the couple’s children, and barred contact by her husband. The Orange County Sheriff’s Office was conducting a domestic violence investigation, and Grayson has not been arrested or charged in connection to the incident.
“It simply isn’t the way she described it,” Grayson told a group of reporters on Tuesday in Washington, D.C., according to ABC News. “She hit me and I retreated. That’s what happened.”
Grayson also said that his wife was “simply lying and I think that our statement makes that clear,” referring to a statement issued by his office calling Carson-Grayson’s allegations “absolutely false, completely unfounded, and clearly designed to vilify and harm Congressman Grayson.”
In a petition for the injunction filed on Monday, Carson-Grayson, who recently filed for divorce, described an altercation where Grayson “deliberately and with force pushed [her] very hard against the front door, causing [her] to fall to the ground as a result,” according to the Sentinel.
Grayson’s director of constituent services, Juan Lopez, witnessed the incident Saturday and put out a separate written statement through Grayson’s office. According to Lopez, Grayson never struck Carson-Grayson.
“As the Congressman moved toward the front door to retrieve a bundle of his mail, [Carson-Grayson] charged toward the door,” Lopez said. “Before he even got in the house, she began striking the Congressman repeatedly and shoving him. The entire time, he remained in a defensive posture and at no point in time did he lay a hand on her. He never made it inside the house. The moment after she hit him, he turned to me and said, ‘Let’s go, let’s go.’ And then we left. The whole thing lasted less than five minutes.”
