Springfield police are investigating claims by a 23-year-old woman that Ward 5 Ald. Sam Cahnman had inappropriate sexual contact with her after a recent downtown music festival.

Springfield police are investigating claims by a 23-year-old woman that Ward 5 Ald. Sam Cahnman had inappropriate sexual contact with her after a recent downtown music festival.

A Sangamon County judge on Monday granted the woman an emergency no-contact order. In her application for the order, the woman claims Cahnman performed sexual acts on her after supplying her with alcohol.

Through his attorney, Cahnman denied any wrongdoing.

Cahnman, 57, who was re-elected to a second term in April, declined to comment for this story. He also refused to speak with police investigators, according to his attorney, Dan Fultz.

Fultz declined to say whether his client had sexual contact with the alleged victim, as described in her application for the no-contact order.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss that,” said Fultz, who won an acquittal for Cahnman last year after Cahnman was arrested for allegedly soliciting prostitutes who were undercover police officers.

Springfield Deputy Police Chief Cliff Buscher confirmed police are investigating allegations against Cahnman. Buscher was away from the office and couldn’t provide a copy of the police report or specifics about the complaint.

The incident reportedly occurred June 4. The woman says she met Cahnman during the last song of the SOHO music festival, which is held around the Old Capitol Plaza, according to her statement.

Cahnman offered to buy her drinks at the Alamo, the application says. The two drank “grape bombs,” a mix of grape vodka and Red Bull, and Sam Adams beer and then went to his nearby apartment in the St. Nicholas Apartments, according to the statement.

At the apartment, the alderman poured her a glass of white wine “from a bottle that had been corked prior to my arrival at his residence,” the woman wrote. They watched an episode of “Hardball” with Chris Matthews on which Cahnman had appeared and discussed politics, she wrote.

She remembers waking up without underwear as he was leaving, she wrote.

According to the statement, the woman contacted Cahnman the next day and he allegedly told her he had performed sexual acts on her.

On June 10, Cahnman went into the Trout Lily Cafe, 218 S. Sixth St., looking to contact her father, the statement says. Fultz said he doesn’t believe that is true.

Fultz said police investigators sought to interview the alderman, but he “respectfully declined the interview.”

“My client has nothing to say at this point,” Fultz said. “It’s an unfounded allegation.”

Fultz said the case could boil down to a credibility contest.

“I think that the person who made the allegation will either be believed by police or she won’t – it’s that simple,” Fultz said.

The emergency no-contact order was granted at 2:40 p.m. Monday. Cahnman must stay at least 500 feet away from the woman and her home and is barred from contacting her in any way through the end of the month. A hearing is scheduled for June 30.

Bruce Rushton can be reached at 788-1542. Deana Stroisch can be reached at 788-1533. Political writer Bernard Schoenberg contributed to this story.

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ARDC hearing scheduled Wednesday

A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday on a three-part complaint against Ward 5 Ald. Sam Cahnman by the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission.

The complaint, which could lead to Cahnman’s disbarment, alleged he made false statements to the court in 2008, solicited a sexual act from undercover police officers in August of 2009, and brought the legal profession into disrepute by groping a woman prisoner at the Sangamon County Jail in 2002.

Cahnman was acquitted by a jury in December of soliciting sex from two undercover Springfield police officers at a downtown bar in 2009. However, an allegation about the incident remains in the ARDC complaint.