WASHINGTON— Herman Cain accuser Sharon Bialek’s ex-boyfriend came forward yesterday to say she told him about Cain’s alleged “inappropriate” touching more than a decade ago, as a new poll shows the controversy is taking a toll on the Republican’s campaign.
Dr. Victor Zuckerman, a former Chicago pediatrician, came forward at a press conference in Shreveport, La., where he now practices medicine, alongside celebrity attorney Gloria Allred, who represents Bialek.
Zuckerman said Bialek told him about Cain’s behavior soon after it occurred in the late 1990s, although he didn’t speak of the explicit details that Bialek recounted at her press conference last week — that Cain put his hands under her skirt and “reached for” her “genitals.”
“She was upset,” he said. “She said that something had happened and that Mr. Cain had touched her in an inappropriate manner. She said that she had handled it and didn’t want to talk about it anymore.”
A CNN-ORC poll out yesterday showed that Cain slipped from the top of the poll last month to third among Republican voters.
The poll put Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich in a statistical tie, with 24 percent and 22 percent, respectively. Cain plummeted 11 points to 14 percent in the latest survey.