PX: Setting the record straight on story about 2012 allegation against Chris Seelbach

Cincinnati City Councilman Chris Seelbach allegedly grabbed a male server's tush in a popular Over-the-Rhine restaurant more than five years ago, according to a police report that recently surfaced.

WLW's Gary Jeff Walker "broke" the news on air Friday afternoon, and he made a weak attempt to frame Seelbach's alleged transgression in the context of the nationwide flurry of sexual harassment allegations against celebrities, politicians and journalists.

But Seelbach's not the story here. This is about the media's responsibility amid the ongoing sexual harassment controversy.

Walker claimed The Enquirer intentionally sat on the story to "protect Chris Seelbach" and that we eventually killed a report because "it doesn't fit your political agenda." Walker tried to compare The Enquirer to NBC News' decision to sit on the Harvey Weinstein story.

Seriously? In fairness, Gary Jeff finished his minutes-long "report"/diatribe by saying: "I don't know."

No, he doesn't. Nor did he bother to call anyone at The Enquirer to find out.

We take allegations of sexual harassment very seriously. That's why The Enquirer thoroughly looked into the Seelbach allegation after a source sent Politics Extra the investigation report two weekends ago.

The media had never previously reported on Seelbach's alleged butt-touching incident, which the police report says supposedly occurred on the same July 2012 night the Democratic councilman reported he'd been assaulted outside the restaurant.

Seelbach, who is openly gay, made a regrettable slurred-speech 911 call that still dogs him to this day – and probably always will if he plans to continue in politics after being term-limited in 2021. The Enquirer and other media reported on the call and the alleged assault at the time.

The investigation report wasn't finished until months later, by which time the media had moved on to other things. So it was never reported on until Walker mentioned it while filling in for Bill Cunningham on Friday afternoon.

Back to our reporting process, PX immediately turned the investigation report over to the editors, who assigned City Hall reporter Cameron Knight to look into it.

Cam first read through the 19-page report. He then tracked down Seelbach's alleged victim, a former server at Bakersfield OTR who no longer lives in Greater Cincinnati. The man said he did not wish to comment or be involved in any stories on the incident. Further, Seelbach's alleged victim was not interviewed by police.

The allegation was made instead by a Bakersfield OTR worker whose last name was not included in the police report.

Seelbach was "intoxicated" and "while ... there he grabbed a male servers (sic) butt," according to the report, based on the interview with the not-fully-named restaurant worker. The report continued: "He heard Chris Seelbach state something to the effect of 'I'm going to grab his butt. I'm not trying to have sex with him.' "

Police did not further pursue the allegation in the midst of the investigation into who had assaulted Seelbach.

The Enquirer attempted to reach a man who might have been the witness but he did not return messages.

Seelbach has declined comment.

So to recap:

• The alleged victim didn't bring forth the allegation.

• It was made by a person not fully identifiable.

• Police didn't see this as a serious enough allegation to at least interview the alleged victim or Seelbach about it.

Like many other news tips, this one remained an open and unpublished story, given the limited information to date.

Frankly, the Seelbach story is shallow. So far, The Enquirer has found no evidence this is a repeated pattern of behavior by Seelbach, who last month was elected to a third term.

If our reporting finds something else, our reporters will thoroughly vet the information and allegations and then a decision will be made whether we have a substantial story to post and print.

This doesn't just go for Seelbach. We have a team of journalists watching political leaders from here to Columbus to Washington, D.C. We don't care if it's a Democrat, Republican or independent.

That's our job.

"The whole point of the First Amendment is you’re supposed to be a watchdog, not a lapdog, not an attack dog, but a watchdog," Walker said on WLW. "Maybe they missed their mark there. I don’t know."

You're right, sir, you don't know. Next time, give us a call first. Otherwise, you'll miss the mark again.

Politics Extra is a column looking inside Greater Cincinnati and Ohio politics. Follow Enquirer political columnist Jason Williams on Twitter @jwilliamscincy and send email to jwilliams@enquirer.com.