Project Veritas

Lie #7: James O'Keefe sexually harassed Nadia Naffe

published on
Gettr

James O'Keefe did not sexually harass or behave in any disrespectful way with Nadia Naffe. James O’Keefe and former Bush-Cheney campaign operative Nadia Naffe worked together and apart on undercover investigations for Project Veritas, including voter fraud and college professors. In September 2011, O’Keefe asked Naffe to come to the Project Veritas office, which was in a finished barn next to his parents’ New Jersey home, for strategic planning.

O’Keefe picked her up at New York’s Penn Station and took her to the barn, where she would stay overnight. Nadia asked O’Keefe to buy her alcohol.

Sometime after O’Keefe left, Naffe started texting O’Keefe that she wanted to go home, eventually telling O’Keefe that if he did not take her to the train in NYC, she would call the police—and destroy his computers.

Naffe herself said that O’Keefe told her he would talk to her in the morning, but she would not relent, so he came back to the barn with another man and took her back to the Penn Station.

In addition to her online posts about the incident, Naffe filed a criminal complaint against O’Keefe, claiming that he sexually harassed her once she got back to Boston.

Here are screenshots from her testimony during the December 21, 2011, Probable Cause hearing at Westwood Borough Municipal Court before Judge Alan Karch.

Naffe 1

Naffe then described how she convinced him to return to the barn.

naffe2

If this does not sound like a sexual harassment story, it is because Naffe then told the court that she was not sexually harassed in the barn by O'Keefe—at a hearing based on her sexual harassment criminal complaint against O'Keefe.

Testimony for your interpretation is below:

Karch: In reviewing your certification, it's clear that there was nothing that set forth there [sic] regarding any striking, shoving, touching, or any other threat to do so; is that correct?


Naffe: That’s correct.


Karch: I didn’t discern any course of alarming conduct in this statement… I'm just trying to determine — it appeared to me from your statement that you voluntarily met with Mr. O'Keefe and voluntarily came to Westwood. At some point, it appears that there was a dispute between you and Mr. O'Keefe, and Mr. O'Keefe left the area where you had been, and then you were calling him and texting him to come back and take you to some form of transportation.

Naffe: That’s correct, sir.

Court: That in and of itself doesn’t show me that there was any harassment, so I need to know if there was anything — see, your statement doesn’t, doesn’t make out a case for harassment.

O’Keefe returned to the barn and took her back to New York’s Penn Station.

After Naffe got back to Boston, she claimed that O’Keefe stole her panties and her computer mouse. O’Keefe found the mouse in the barn and told Naffe that no one could find the panties.

We can only speculate that this may have been what Naffe considered sexual harassment, but it is hard to discern from her own account.

Karch: Is it your allegationvthat the incident of harassment happened after you left Westwood and went back to Boston?

Naffe: Yes, sir.

Then, later on, the judge tried again.

Court: The harassment happened after you left Westwood [the location of the barn/office]?

Naffe: That is correct, sir.

The judge dismissed this complaint on the grounds that she had not provided proof that a crime had been committed.

After the dismissal, Naffe threatened to sue O’Keefe for false imprisonment, based on his not responding to her texts promptly. She posted the threat online, but never filed the suit. She also posted online court documents she accessed on O’Keefe’s email account along with her narrative of the night, calling the Project Veritas offices a “rape barn.”

David Shuster, then a host on CurrentTV, said on air February 24, 2012, that O'Keefe was facing rape charges, but he corrected himself four days later.

O’Keefe has never been charged with rape.

Writing March 22, 2012, for Gawker, Maureen O’Connor wrote:

There's a chance that Nadia is a litigious paranoiac who blows minor grievances out of proportion and misinterprets the world around her—which is, ironically, James' modus operandi as well. What a strangely appropriate dilemma.

About Project Veritas

Project Veritas is a non-profit investigative news organization conducting undercover reporting. Project Veritas investigates and exposes corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions to achieve a more ethical and transparent society. Project Veritas is a registered 501(c)(3) organization.