![]() She didn't know where they were going, but no sooner was the car in gear than Maldonado was putting his hands on her. Smith said she thought the worst was over. Smith said she was fighting off this attack when three colleagues climbed into the car, including an attorney named Terese Brown who got in the back seat with them. "He was trying to kiss me, put his hands under my shirt, under my bra." I think I used the word 'ushered' in court," she said. ![]() "He moved me, not in a kind of forceful way. Before she knew what was happening, Smith said Maldonado was pulling her into the back seat. At some point she said she felt someone pulling on her arm, leading her outside the bar to a car parked directly at the entrance. He talked her up with "sexual, unwelcome comments." Smith decided to avoid him.Īnd as the drinks flowed, Smith said she allowed herself to relax. If Maldonado was put off by her discomfort, Smith said he didn't show it. "He gave me the heebie-jeebies, frankly," she said. Maldonado had made her uncomfortable in the past with "sexually aggressive" and suggestive remarks, Smith said. She said she knew him as an acquaintance who moved in the same professional circles. Smith said she didn't invite him and she certainly wasn't looking for any kind of hookup. She was going through a divorce and was usually at home with her three kids, all under age 5. In her late 30s, Smith was general counsel for the now-defunct Arizona Summit Law School, a position that afforded her prestige and a sense of power. She had met up with friends at The Rock Bar in Phoenix's Melrose District for a night of karaoke. Smith said she still has trouble believing what Maldonado did to her. And he said the Maricopa County Attorney's Office was a willing ally, with prosecutors seeking to settle differences from when he was employed there in 2006. He said she and other witnesses made the whole thing up they conspired to take him down. ![]() During the trial, Maldonado denied ever putting his hands on Smith. Neither Maldonado nor his attorney responded to interview requests. "But I can't have feelings like that anymore." "I initially felt for his family," she said. But she had to push those thoughts aside. Smith said she used to think about the effect her case would have on Maldonado's wife and children. ![]() Smith said she is concerned more women were victimized, including law students who met Maldonado through his work at Los Abogados. Maldonado, as part of a settlement with the State Bar in 2018, admitted to two of the allegations Read the story: Once-powerful Arizona attorney faces prison in sexual assault, abuse caseĪt least three other women have come forward with harassment allegations against Maldonado over encounters they said occurred between 20. It's necessary to prevent him from preying on other women, she said. Smith wouldn't say if she believes Maldonado should go to prison, but she does want him to register as a sex offender. It's up to the judge now," Smith told The Arizona Republic. His sentencing hearing is scheduled in March, and he could receive more than 12 years in prison. The Phoenix power broker who had once been president of Los Abogados, Arizona's Hispanic Bar Association, faced a reckoning in the very courthouse where he once held sway as a deputy county attorney. The denials, the gaslighting, the accusations that she had made it all up, shattered in a single word: guilty. But for her, the verdict was as much about being believed as it was about his guilt.Īfter eight years, a stalled investigation and two trials, a jury publicly announced that it believed her. 1 convicted lawyer Edward Maldonado of sexual assault and sexual abuse for his attack on Smith. ![]()
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