March 3rd, 2018 by WCBC Radio

State Sen. Cheryl Kagan said a former lawmaker and current lobbyist touched her inappropriately Thursday evening during a karaoke night at an Annapolis bar. In a statement she released on Senate letterhead Friday, Kagan said it was not the first time that lobbyist Gil Genn put his hands on her, but she decided to publicly “call him out” because it was the first time it happened since resistance to sexual harassment began dominating national news as part of the #MeToo movement.

“How someone would still have the audacity to do that, in this climate, astonished me,” said Kagan, who plans to file a former complaint about the incident, in an interview.

Genn denies he touched Kagan at all, calling Kagan’s account of their brief karaoke night encounter “delusional.”

Although Maryland’s female lawmakers published a report describing anonymous accounts of sexual harassment in the General Assembly, Kagan is the first sitting Maryland lawmaker to publicly accuse someone of inappropriate conduct.