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A 46-year-old man on April 4 filed a lawsuit against Seattle’s gay mayor, Edward Murray, alleging that when he was 15 in 1986 Murray persuaded him to accept money for sex on multiple occasions, which the man now considers to have been a form of sexual abuse.

The lawsuit initially identified the accuser only by the initials D.H. But on April 19 attorneys for the accuser filed a revised version of the lawsuit disclosing his full name – Dalvonn Heckard of Kent County, Wash.

Heckard’s attorney said Heckard decided to disclose his name after learning that two other men who have also accused Murray of having sex with them in the 1980s when they were teenagers chose to reveal their names.

Murray, 61, and his attorney have released statements calling the accusations by all three men false and politically motivated at a time when Murray is running for re-election to a second term as mayor.

Nine candidates are running against Murray in the city’s nonpartisan primary scheduled for Aug. 1. Under the city’s election law, the two candidates who receive the highest vote counts in the primary will run against each other in the Nov. 7 general election.

“Let me be clear: These allegations dating back to more than a period of 30 years are simply not true,” Murray said in a statement. “I will not back down now. I will continue to be mayor of the city. I will continue to run for re-election, and I plan to lead this city as we work our way through the wind and rain storm of this weekend as well as many challenges going forward.”

Days after Heckard’s lawsuit was filed in King County Superior Court the Seattle Times published a lengthy article reporting the full details of Heckard’s allegations as well as the allegations made by the other two men, who claimed Murray paid them for sex in the 1980s while they and Murray lived in Portland, Ore.

The newspaper reported that the other two men, Jeff Simpson and Lloyd Anderson, first made their allegations against Murray 10 years ago but the paper and other media outlets chose not to publish the allegations because they were hard to substantiate and the two men had criminal records, including arrests for prostitution.

“While the Seattle Times chose not to publish the 2008 allegations, the similarities between those claims and the new public case gave additional weight and relevance to the previous information,” the newspaper states in a story published on April 6 and updated on April 10

In his lawsuit, Heckard says he first met Murray on a city bus in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood shortly after he dropped out of high school at the age of 15 and was homeless.

“Mr. Murray was approximately age thirty-two (32) at the time, and propositioned D.H. for private visits at his Capitol Hill apartment,” the original version of the lawsuit states. “Prior to the sex acts, Mr. Murray asked D.H. his age, and he responded truthfully, age 15,” the lawsuit says.

“Addicted to drugs at the time, D.H. was willing to do whatever Mr. Murray asked for as little as $10-20,” according to the lawsuit. “The sex acts included various forms of intercourse – anal of course – and oral sex acts, with Mr. Murray always on the receiving end of oral interactions.”

Under Washington State law the age of sexual consent is 16 and sexual encounters between an adult and someone 15 or younger is considered statutory rape. If money is exchanged, the adult and minor could also be charged with prostitution. However, the statute of limitations for bringing criminal charges against Murray has long ago expired, the Seattle Times reported, preventing him from being criminally prosecuted based on Heckard’s allegations.

But in the lawsuit, Heckard’s lawyers point out that in certain situations, civil litigation brought by an alleged sexual abuse victim who was under the age of 18 at the time of the alleged abuse is exempt from any deadlines established by statutes of limitations.

The lawsuit also states that Heckard “was convicted of various charges that include an extensive drug addiction and acts of prostitution in 1990 during an unrelated sting operation.”

In a recent interview with the Seattle Times, Heckard said his decision to take action against Murray years after the alleged sexual encounters began came about after he underwent counseling and was able to overcome his drug addiction through treatment. He said the recent death of his father played a key role in prompting him to file the lawsuit now because for years he wanted to hide the alleged abuse from his father.

As “evidence” that he had intimate relations with Murray, the lawsuit says Heckard observed that Murray had a noticeable mole on his genitals.

Murray’s attorney said at an April 11 news conference that Murray would release a statement from his doctor following a medical examination asserting that no such mole exists and there was no evidence to show it had been surgically removed.

The attorney, Bob Sulkin, called the medical exam a “game-changing” development.

“We have allegations dating back 30 years,” he said. “We have to understand what the heart of the accuser’s allegation is – it’s the detailing of Mayor Murray’s private anatomy…This morning Mayor Murray submitted to a physical exam by his doctor at the PolyClinic. It was found to be no mole or bump in his private anatomy as alleged by the accuser.”

Heckard’s attorney responded by calling for an independent medical exam arranged for by the court as the case moves forward.

In his own statement released shortly after the lawsuit was filed, Murray suggested the allegations were politically motivated and may be based on anti-LGBT bias.

“All I can tell you is it’s very peculiar that the allegations come when I’m trying to move a significant lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender bill on civil rights, when I’m trying to move domestic partnership for gay and lesbian couples, when I’m trying to pursue marriage, when I’m suing the president of the United States over immigration,” he said. “And I’m running for re-election.”

George Bakan, editor in chief of the Seattle Gay News, said Murray was referring to his LGBT advocacy endeavors during the 29 years he served as a lawmaker in the Washington State Legislature prior to becoming mayor of Seattle.

Murray’s supporters have noted that John Connelly, the founding partner of the Connelly Law Offices, the law firm that is representing Heckard on a contingency basis, is a longtime opponent of LGBT rights and contributed money to a failed statewide ballot measure last year seeking to prohibit transgender people from using public bathrooms that match their gender identity.

Lincoln Beauregard, the Connelly law firm attorney who is working on Heckard’s lawsuit, said he personally supports LGBT rights and disagrees with Connelly’s positions on that subject, according to the Stranger, a Seattle online news site.

“We have represented many, many gay clients. The idea that this is anti-gay is ridiculous,” the Stranger quoted Beauregard as saying in an email to the online site.