A Toronto-based professor and writer is backing former Toronto Star journalist Natasha Stoynoff who has accused Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her in 2005, while she was on assignment for People magazine.

Paul McLaughlin says Stoynoff is telling the truth — and that her story hasn’t changed since she first told him about it shortly after the alleged attack.

“The reason I’m speaking about this — and it is with her blessing, by the way — is that she is being accused by a man running for the presidency of the United States of being a complete liar, of fabricating a story about something that for her was quite horrible,” he said.

Stoynoff did not respond to the Star’s requests for comment.

“Now (Trump’s) got to say that I’m a liar, too, and I’m not. I’m telling the truth,” said McLaughlin, who recalled Stoynoff being deeply disturbed by her encounter with Trump.

“It really shook her and she didn’t know what to do, and among the people that she would turn to, I was one that she would call and ask for advice and that’s what she did,” said McLaughlin, a former journalism professor at Ryerson University who now teaches at the York University.

McLaughlin said he told her not to go public with her accusation at the time, in order to protect her career.

“Here he is with his very pregnant wife in an adjacent room; he is not the type of person who is going to admit what he did. And I thought that because there was no evidence other than her word versus his word that he could easily turn around and accuse her of hitting on him and he could destroy her career,” McLaughlin recalled.

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“What saddens me more is that someone of Donald Trump’s prominence is waging war against a young, talented, writer and saying things he knows are 100-per-cent wrong,” he said. “He knows he is not telling what happened accurately and I just … it seems to be a pattern with him.”

On Wednesday, Stoynoff published her story online in People.

She wrote that when travelling to visit Donald and Melania Trump to write a feature about the couple’s first wedding anniversary, Trump “shut the door behind us. I turned around, and within seconds he was pushing me against the wall and forcing his tongue down my throat.” Stoynoff wrote that Melania, who was pregnant at the time, was changing upstairs in preparation for a photo shoot.

Trump has denied the allegations and tweeted a suggestion that the story was made up: “Why didn’t the writer of the twelve year old article in People Magazine mention the ‘incident’ in her story. Because it did not happen!” he wrote.

McLaughlin said Stoynoff, who was a student of his when he taught journalism at Ryerson University, called him, upset, shortly after it happened

, and that he stayed in touch with her over the years.

This week, Stoynoff is one of several women who have gone public with allegations that Trump sexually assaulted them. This follows a leaked video from 2005 that show Trump bragging about groping and kissing women without their consent.

McLaughlin didn’t know Stoynoff was going to go public with her story before she did this week, but said he recognized her story when he read it. He said it is the same as the one she told him years ago.

“I think that it’s terrible that she had to go through that. That someone who she thought admired her work turned on her that way, and destroyed what was a good professional relationship,” McLaughlin said. “Not only do I have compassion for Natasha but for anyone who has gone through this in their life.”

McLaughlin said if he could go back in time, he’d stand by what he told Stoynoff. He thinks she made the right choice in no longer covering Trump.

In her published account of what happened, Stoynoff said she only told a few close friends and family about her experience in Mar-a-Lago.

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“In time, I chalked it up to one of the hazards of a roller-coaster ride of celebrity journalism: I’d danced barefoot in Cannes with John Travolta, sang with Paul McCartney, talked about Bogie with Bacall, quoted Shakespeare with Brando and Prince Andrew yelled at me until I cried,” Stoynoff wrote. “Oh, and Donald Trump forced himself on me. I tried to make myself believe it was no big deal.

“Now he’s running for president of our country.”

Correction – October 17, 2016: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said Paul McLaughlin is currently a professor at the University of Toronto.

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