James Comer abuse allegations now at center of KY governor's race

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - A woman on Monday publicly accused Republican candidate for governor James Comer of abusing her during their college relationship, while Comer's running mate attacked a rival over the allegations.

Edwin King, Comer's campaign manager, did not respond to a text message and email seeking comment about the abuse allegations.

Marilyn Thomas detailed her accusations publicly for the first time in a letter to the Louisville

Courier-Journal

, which the newspaper wrote about in a story

Monday night.

"Did Jamie Comer ever hit me? Yes," Thomas wrote, as reported by the newspaper.

Thomas also accused Comer taking her to get an abortion in 1991,

The Courier-Journal

reported. According to the newspaper, Comer's lawyer, Dick Plymale, said Comer "profusely denies" the woman's accusations.

Thomas has donated $100 to Heiner's campaign for governor, according to Kentucky Registry of Election Finance

.

State Sen. Chris McDaniel, Comer's running mate, used part of his opening statement during a debate Monday to criticize KC Crosbie, Hal Heiner's lieutenant governor candidate, for her connection to a blogger that has posted about the alleged incident since last summer.

"I've just been horribly disappointed on a very personal level because the same blogger who did that several months ago put out personal threats against my six and 10 year old daughters that caused us to have to contact the commonwealth's attorney who convened a grand jury and has an ongoing investigation," McDaniel said.

"That's not the type of politics that Kentucky deserves and, frankly KC, I've been appalled about what I've seen over the past several weeks related to this," he continued.

When debate moderator Bill Goodman of KET asked Crosbie if she wanted to respond, Crosbie said Heiner had already addressed the issue and said the two were running a "positive campaign."

Last week, Heiner apologized after the Lexington

Herald-Leader

reported that Crosbie's husband, Scott Crosbie, had contacted blogger Michael Adams about the alleged assault on Marilyn Thomas.

Comer has a news conference scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday about an unrelated matter. It was not immediately clear how the campaign would respond to Thomas' allegations.

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