Massa Describes Tickle Fights with Aides

Former Representative Eric J. Massa of New York, who resigned from Congress amid allegations of sexual misconduct, vehemently denied any wrongdoing during a television appearance on Tuesday, even as he described having tickle fights with staff members in a house they shared.
But he insisted that that was as far as it went.
”No, no, no!” he said when asked during an interview with Glenn Beck on the Fox News Channel. ”I did nothing sexual.”
Mr. Massa made the comments as new reports surfaced that the House ethics committee was investigating allegations, reported in The Washington Post on Tuesday, that he groped several male aides in his office. The paper said that the behavior dated back a year. It did not say how many staff members were involved.
That is at odds with an account provided by Mr. Massa, who on Monday described an inappropriate exchange he had with an aide during another staff member’s wedding in January. He said he grabbed the aide while the two were seated at a table, joked about having sexual relations with him and mussed his hair before getting up and leaving.
In the interview with Mr. Beck, Mr. Massa acknowledged exercising poor judgment in his interactions with his staff on another occasion. He recalled tickling an aide during a birthday party in a town house he shared with five of his staff members.
”Now they are saying I groped a male staffer,” he told Mr. Beck. ”Yeah, I did. Not only did I grope him. I tickled him until he couldn’t breathe, and then four guys jumped on top of me. It was my 50th birthday. It was kill the old guy. You can take anything out of context.”

Read more: (Raymond Hernandez, “Ex-Congressman Describes Tickle Fights with Aides,” The New York Times, 03/10/10)