A City Council member accused of rape, Dennis Gallagher, appears to have been indicted by a grand jury and will have to surrender to authorities Friday, his lawyer said yesterday.
A spokesman for the Queens district attorney's office, Kevin Ryan, said he could not verify the indictment because the grand jury's deliberations are secret. He said the office is holding a press conference at 11 a.m. Friday, but he would not say what would be announced.
Mr. Gallagher, a Republican of Queens, has been dogged for weeks by allegations that he raped a woman in his district office in Middle Village, Queens, after meeting her at a local bar July 8. He has denied the accusation, saying he has faith in the system and is confident he will be vindicated.
Mr. Gallagher told the grand jury on Wednesday he had consensual sex with the woman accusing him of rape, his lawyer, Stephen Mahler said. To indict Mr. Gallagher, at least 16 of the 23 grand jury members had to vote in favor of the action.
Another lawyer for Mr. Gallagher, Christopher Renfroe, said he doesn't know what the charges are against his client. "The only thing I can tell you is I've been notified to surrender tomorrow," he said.
The anticipated indictment could shake up City Hall, where there has been little public reaction, short of initial shock from some members, to the accusation. Mr. Gallagher, who was elected to the council in 2001, attended a finance committee hearing and a council meeting at City Hall on July 25, and chatted with other council members before the meeting began. He said at the time that he was focused on community issues in his district.
Mr. Gallagher lives with his wife and two children in Middle Village, according to his council Web site, and is a former investigator for the State of New York Crime Victims Board. He was chief of staff to a former council minority leader, Thomas Ognibene.
In addition to Mr. Gallagher, two other council members have faced allegations of sexual misconduct since 2004, but criminal charges were not pressed. In 2002, a council member of Brooklyn, Angel Rodriguez, was indicted on extortion charges and later convicted and sentenced to four years and four months in prison. Speaker Christine Quinn said in a statement yesterday that both she and the council "take very seriously the deeply troubling allegations against Council Member Dennis Gallagher. 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."
