9. A Presidential Scandal That Puts Other Scandals to Shame
It began on the evening of December 15th, 1873, with a chance street encounter in Buffalo between Maria Halpin and Grover Cleveland. At the time, he was a prominent lawyer and former Sheriff of Erie County, which included Buffalo. Cleveland, a stocky six-footer who had been courting Halpin for months, invited her to dinner at a restaurant, and she accepted. After a pleasant meal, he escorted her back to her boarding house. There, however, the pleasantness stopped, things took a horrible turn, and Halpin’s perception of Cleveland was forever altered.
According to Halpin in an affidavit, the future president assaulted her “by use of force and violence and without my consent“. When she threatened to report the assault, the former Sheriff threatened her into silence. As her affidavit continued, Cleveland: “told me he was determined to ruin me if it cost him $10,000, if he was hanged by the neck for it. I then and there told him that I never wanted to see him again, and commanded him to leave my room, which he did“.