A female Utah lawmaker running for US Congress allegedly made aggressive and unwanted sexual advances on four women — with one accuser claiming she was choked and another saying an “incredibly embarrassing” incident left them in tears.
Salt Lake City Councilwoman Eva Lopez Chavez allegedly accosted the women between 2019 and 2022, with her accusers describing her as relentless and refusing to take no for an answer, the Salt Lake Tribune reported Wednesday.
The four accusers include a state senator, a state representative, a fellow councilwoman and a former political aide. The alleged encounters all occurred before Chavez Lopez assumed her current office, according to the Tribune.
Lopez Chavez — a Democratic Gen Z-er seeking to represent Utah’s 1st District in Washington DC — has denied the claims outright, saying they “never occurred” and that she was “shocked by the allegations,” and even offering to undergo a lie detector test to demonstrate her innocence.
“She stands ready to submit to a polygraph test regarding these various allegations if requested,” her attorney, Greg Skordas, told the Tribune. “She is prepared to address them in any forum.”
One of the claims allegedly occurred in Sept. 2022, when Lopez Chavez went to a wedding afterparty with members of the city council — including Councilwoman Victoria Petro.
Petro claimed Lopez Chavez grabbed her throat at the party, and then “pushed me back against a pillar so that my back was against the wall and told me, ‘The only reason I still f–k men is because a woman hasn’t shown me what I really want.'”
“If a man had done that to me, would there be a question if it was assault or not?” Petro told the Tribune.
Petro allegedly reported the incident after the party to Council Chair Alejandro Puy, who recalled her being “shocked at what had happened.”
Lopez Chavez allegedly told Petro to stop telling people about the incident after she won her city council election in 2023.
Her attorney claimed photos and video from the wedding afterparty refuted Petros’ allegations — explaining the two seemed to be getting along fine in the images — and that “nothing inappropriate happened and no one ever expressed any concern about Eva’s conduct.”
The other alleged incident happened two months later in Nov. 2022 at a birthday party, where State Sen. Jen Plumb (D-Salt Lake City) claimed Lopez Chavez shoved her into a wall and groped her.
“It absolutely was a sexual advance. She leaned into me, grabbed onto my a–, got up in my face and said in my ear, ‘You’re sure you’re straight?’” Plumb claimed. “I just pushed her away. Come on. Knock it off.”
“I would not be comfortable with someone doing that to my daughter, to my mom, my best friends,” she added. “I’m not comfortable with it being brushed away anymore.”
The same year, Democratic State Rep. Hoang Nguyen claimed she was driving Lopez Chavez home from an event when the councilwoman asked to pull over.
“Next thing I know she has leaned over and she’s on top of me, holding my shoulders down,” Nguyen told the Tribune. “I said, ‘What are you doing?’ And she said, ‘Kiss me,’” Nguyen said. “She said, ‘I’m not going to get off you until you kiss me.’ I gave her a peck and she got off.”
Lopez Chavez’s attorney also refuted that story, explaining she and Nguyen have had numerous friendly text messages with each other since the supposed incident.
The first alleged incident happened in 2019, when former mayoral campaign aide Maggie Regier said Lopez Chavez was being extremely “flirty” at a fundraising event.
Regier tried to politely get out of the situation, but Lopez Chavez allegedly took Regier “into a literal corner in the hallway,” pinned them to a wall and wouldn’t let them leave. It supposedly took a friend to step in and pull Lopez Chavez away, the Tribune reported.
But the advances allegedly continued on the dance floor, with another friend ultimately stepping between Lopez Chavez and Regier and saying ‘Leave Maggie alone,’” Regier claimed.
Regier allegedly reported the incident to the campaign supervisor, Corey Cronin, who recalled the aide being brought to tears recounting it. Regier then posted about the incident on social media in 2023 as Lopez Chavez was running for City Council, calling it “harassment.”
“It made me feel incredibly unsafe,” Regier wrote, according to the Tribune.
Lopez Chavez’s attorney denied that she ever had to be pulled away from Regier, explaining a friend merely told her Regier wanted to be left alone and that the councilwoman complied.
The allegations emerged publicly after Lopez Chavez spoke out against misogynistic comments one of her congressional race opponents, Nate Blouin, made online about women and sexual assault about 10 years ago.
Lopez Chavez called for Blouin to drop out of the race after the posts emerged earlier in April, and called herself a sexual assault survivor.
That statement is part of what spurned her accusers to come forward, according to the Tribune.
It remains unclear how the Salt Lake City Council will address the allegations, but Chairman Puy told the Tribune that in February he ordered a review of the council’s internal policies because of claims he’d heard about Lopez Chavez’s behavior.
Lopez Chavez’s attorney could not be reached for comment by The Post by the time of publication.
