City Councilman Dennis P. Gallagher has been indicted by a Queens grand jury investigating rape allegations against him, the councilman and his lawyer confirmed yesterday.
The indictment remained sealed yesterday and Mr. Gallagher, a Queens Republican, said he did not know what charges were handed up. The Queens district attorney is expected to hold a news conference today to announce the results of the grand jury’s deliberations.
The indictment comes one day after Mr. Gallagher appeared before the grand jury, telling the 23-member panel that the sexual encounter at the center of the allegations was consensual, his lawyer said. He continued to assert his innocence yesterday.
“The grand jury did not have all the information, nor did it hear all the witnesses,” he said in a telephone interview from his Middle Village home. “At the end, after the trial process when all the information can be heard, I strongly feel I will be vindicated of any charges.”
The Queens district attorney, Richard A. Brown, would not discuss the indictment yesterday. “Any action that’s taken by the grand jury is sealed as a matter of law,” he said. Criminal charges contained in an indictment are unsealed when a defendant is arraigned.
Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn commented on the allegations for the first time yesterday.
“The Council and I take very seriously the deeply troubling allegations against council member Dennis Gallagher,” she said in a statement. “Therefore, the matter is being immediately referred to the City Council’s Standards and Ethics Committee, which will meet at the beginning of next week.”
Mr. Gallagher is expected to surrender to the police this morning and then be arraigned. He is expected to plead not guilty to whatever charges are filed, his lawyer, Stephen R. Mahler said.
Mr. Mahler was sharply critical of the grand jury proceedings, saying that a majority of the questions asked of his client were designed to prejudice jurors against him. He said he planned to immediately file a motion to dismiss the charges based on what he said was prosecutorial misconduct.
“Well, this grand jury presentation was really stark evidence why lawyers almost always advise clients who are targets of an investigation not to testify,” he said.
Mr. Gallagher chose to testify despite his advice, Mr. Mahler said, because he “felt he didn’t want to hide behind legal maneuvering and felt he owed it to his constituents to come forward and say he’d done nothing illegal.” Kevin R. Ryan, a spokesman for the Queens district attorney’s office, declined to comment on Mr. Mahler’s allegations.
The investigation began after a woman told the police that Mr. Gallagher had raped her at his Council office in Middle Village on July 8, after the two had been drinking at a nearby bar.
Mr. Gallagher, 43, is married with two children. Before being elected to the Council in 2001, he was a longtime chief of staff to Thomas V. Ognibene, the former Council minority leader. Mr. Ognibene said he was saddened by news of the indictment.
“There was nothing in my relationship with him to indicate that he was capable of this kind of conduct, so it was shocking to hear of this indictment. But speaking as a lawyer, an indictment is nothing but an accusation, and people ought to allow him the presumption of innocence,” Mr. Ognibene said.
The last council member indicted in a crime was Angel Rodriguez, a Brooklyn Democrat who resigned in 2002 before pleading guilty to federal bribery charges, according to Council officials.
