Julie Swetnick's ex-boyfriend: 'She never once mentioned this to me'

Julie Swetnick gave an interview last night to NBC News. If you missed that you can read about it here. To sum it up very briefly, she doesn’t accuse Kavanaugh of spiking punch or raping anyone and her story remains completely uncorroborated. A few hours after her interview, Swetnick’s ex-boyfriend Richard Vinneccy appeared on Laura Ingraham’s show and painted a not-terribly flattering portrait of her character.

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Vinneccy and Swetnick dated for seven years, from 1994 to 2001. He says that during that time she “never once” mentioned that she had been a victim of sexual assault. “We used to talk about just about everything and she never once mentioned that at all,” he said.

In March 2001 after their relationship ended, Vinneccy filed a restraining order against Swetnick in response to repeated phone calls and threats he claims Swetnick made against him. Asked why he didn’t follow through on the order, Vinneccy replied, “The reason I didn’t is because I knew that I had to see her again. I talked at that time to my family and we decided not to do anything, not to follow up because I didn’t want to provoke her.” He added, “We decided to change our numbers and move, and that’s basically what we did.”

Confronted with Michael Avenatti’s claim that his own claims about Swetnick aren’t credible, Vinneccy suggested he knows her better than Avenatti does, “Nobody knows Julie Swetnick better than me and he can say anything he wants.” And his conclusion is that Swetnick isn’t credible. “If you ask me personally if I believe her, I don’t believe her,” he said.

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There’s some confusion at the end of the interview when Ingraham seems to momentarily confuse Swetnick with Christine Blasey Ford and asks Vinneccy what he thought of her testimony, but Ingraham quickly corrects herself and asks what he thought when her story came out in the press. Specifically, she asks again if Vinneccy had ever mentioned a gang rape during their 7-year relationship.

“We talked about everything. She never once mentioned this to me, at all,” Vinneccy said.

It’s worth noting that exes do often have their own axes to grind so I’d take anything Vinneccy says with a grain of salt. Also, it’s possibly Swetnick never mentioned this because she felt uncomfortable talking about it. But this does become one more instance of Swetnick not having anyone who corroborates her story. The people she says she told about it are either deceased or haven’t responded to media requests.

Swetnick did claim last night on NBC News that she reported the incident to the police at the time. If so there should be a record of that somewhere. Montgomery County police said it could take a month to find any records because it was so long ago and because the officer who she claims took the report is deceased. But a police report, if it exists, would obviously corroborate a core element of her story.

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Of course, it’s worth pointing out again that she hasn’t accused Kavanaugh of participating in her alleged assault. Even a police report won’t change that. Here’s the interview with Vinneccy:

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