Conservative Republican Nebraska State Sen. Julie Slama revealed this week that GOP gubernatorial candidate Charles Herbster – who has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump – put a hand up her skirt in 2019.
Herbester has denied Salma’s claim, as well as allegations from seven other women that said he groped them from 2017 to this year.
Slama, 25, told the Nebraska Examiner that Herbster, who is in his 60s, groped her in a “crowded ballroom at the Douglas County Republican Party’s annual Elephant Remembers dinner,” around three years ago.
“I felt a hand reach up my skirt, up my dress, and the hand was Charles Herbster’s,” she told KFAB radio Thursday. Slama has shared a photo of the dress on Twitter in response to a statement from former Omaha, Neb. Mayor Hal Daub questioning what she was wearing. She also said he grabbed the buttocks of another young woman at the event.
Herbster told the same radio station that he is innocent.
“I absolutely 100% deny all the accusations that were in the article,” he said. “I deny them 100%.”
When she attended the dinner, Salma had just been appointed to the District 1 legislative seat representing southeast Nebraska, where Herbster owns a farm and a house. She said the event was traumatizing and also mentioned it earlier this year in a floor speech.
“Being a young woman, there’s a huge power differential there between a newly appointed 22-year-old state senator and one of the biggest donors in the Nebraska Republican Party,” she said this week.
Herbster is a “businessman, and fifth-generation farmer and rancher,” according to his campaign website. He is listed as CEO of several companies, including Conklin Company, Inc. His wife, Judith Herbster, worked for Conklin and passed away in 2017. The couple had no children.
The gubernatorial candidate said that the claims against him are libelous and announced this week that he will sue to defend his name.
“They did it with [Supreme Court justice] Brett Kavanaugh, they certainly did it with Donald J. Trump, and now they’re trying to do it with Charles W. Herbster,” he said. “I’m not going to let this stop me; I’m not gonna let this deter me. I have nothing to hide.”
Incumbent Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, also a Republican, is not able to run in the November gubernatorial race due to term limits. Herbster is one of several Republican candidates running in the state’s May 10 primary.
According to the Lincoln Journal-Star, Trump announced his endorsement of Herbster in December.
However, some politicians from Herbster’s home state have criticized him since the sexual assault allegations were reported, including all 13 of Nebraska’s female state senators.
“My only interest in this is protecting this from happening to other young women because they don’t deserve it,” said Slama.
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