The Mayor of Seattle has been accused of repeatedly raping teenage boys who were addicted to crack cocaine and paying them $10 a time.

Ed Murray, 61, reportedly 'raped and molested' a 15-year-old boy for up to five years after they met on a city bus in 1986, according to a lawsuit filed on Thursday.

In interviews with The Seattle Times, two other men claimed he abused them and paid them for sex when they were teenagers in the 1980s.

The mayor branded the claims 'categorically false', adding that it was no coincidence that the allegations came 'within weeks of the campaign filing deadline'.

Murray was elected mayor in 2013 after a long career in the Legislature, where he led efforts to legalize gay marriage in the state. As mayor he pushed to increase the city's minimum wage to $15 an hour and address the homelessness crisis in Seattle.

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The Mayor of Seattle Ed Murray has been accused of repeatedly raping teenage boys who were addicted to crack cocaine and paying them $10 a time

Murray's address in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle is seen above

A 46-year-old man, identified by the initials D.H, said Murray 'raped and molested him' over several years, according to the lawsuit filed in King County Superior Court.

He claimed the abuse began when he was 15 and addicted to crack cocaine, and Murray was in his early 30s.

'I have been dealing with this for over 30 years,' the man, now sober for a year, told the Times.

He said he was coming forward as part of a 'healing process' after years of 'the shame, the embarrassment, the guilt, the humiliation that I put myself through and that he put me through.'

The man also said his father's recent death freed him of a desire to keep the abuse secret.

His attorneys wrote in the complaint that their client's actions were not politically motivated, KIRO7 reported.

They said that D.H 'believes that the public has a right to full information when a trusted official exploits a child' .

The newspaper also reported that two other men said they knew Murray when they lived in a Portland, Oregon, center for troubled children.

Jeff Simpson and Lloyd Anderson accused Murray of abusing them in the 1980s and paying them for sex and said they'd be willing to testify about it, the Times said.

In interviews with The Seattle Times, two other men claimed he abused them and paid them for sex when they were teenagers in the 1980s. Above, Murray attends a dinner reception for Chinese President Xi Jinping in Seattle, Washington, U.S. on September 22, 2015

Simpson, 49, said Murray - who he had thought of as a father - raped him over several years, starting at age 13, and in later years, paid him.

'I would really like for him to admit it and to take responsibility,' Simpson told two Times reporters who visited him in Portland.

'I don't necessarily think that he destroyed my life but I believe a lot of the problems I have stemmed from this.'

Simpson tried to bring a lawsuit against Murray in 2007, with Anderson's support, but his lawyer withdrew from the case.

In 2008, Simpson started calling media organizations and lawmakers in Olympia, saying Murray, then a state senator, was a pedophile who had sexually abused him.

When the alleged abuse began, one of them reportedly talked with a social worker and detective.

Simpson and Anderson raised the allegations a decade ago in calls to reporters and Washington state lawmakers, and they repeated them in recent interviews with the Times.

No charges were filed and an entry in an old Multnomah County district attorney's database indicates the office considered but rejected a felony third-degree sodomy case in May 1984.

A 46-year-old man, identified by the initials D.H, said Murray 'raped and molested him' over several years, according to the lawsuit filed in King County Superior Court (pictured). Two other men, Jeff Simpson and Lloyd Anderson accused Murray of abusing them in the 1980s

Any other police and child welfare records would have been destroyed by now, officials said.

Murray's personal spokesman Jeff Reading said: 'These false accusations are intended to damage a prominent elected official who has been a defender of vulnerable populations for decades.

'It is not a coincidence that this shakedown effort comes within weeks of the campaign filing deadline. These unsubstantiated assertions, dating back three decades, are categorically false.'

Reading's statement acknowledged the historic allegations.

'The two older accusations were promoted by extreme right-wing anti-gay activists in the midst of the marriage equality campaign, and were thoroughly investigated and dismissed by both law enforcement authorities and the media,' the statement said.

Before his political career, Murray - one of seven children in an Irish Catholic family - considered the priesthood. He spent a year at a seminary in 1976 before studying sociology at the University of Portland, a private Catholic institution, according to news profiles.

Having sex with a child under 16 - the age of legal consent in Washington in 1986 and today - constitutes rape of a child under state law. The statute of limitations on any crime would have expired long ago.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and says D.H. has not previously made any financial demands of Murray.