Oh No - Stories from Massa’s Navy days - It isn’t pretty
It isn’t pretty for former Congressman Eric Massa. His old shipmates tell their stories. Like I said it isn’t pretty. The question is - Is the last anchor to drop? I suspect not.
According to Peter Clarke, a Navy shipmate, Massa was notorious for making unwanted advances toward subordinates. He tells the story of his friend Stuart Borsch, with whom Massa shared a hotel room while on leave during the first Gulf War. “Stuart’s at the edge of the bed,” Clarke says Borsch told him at the time, “and [Massa] starts massaging him. Massa said, ‘You’ll have to get one of my special massages.’ He called them ‘Massa Massages.’” Ron Moss, a Navy shipmate and Borsch’s roommate, confirmed that Borsch told him this story at the time.
Borsch, now a history professor at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts, didn’t addresss that specific incident, but did confirm to me in an email that he was groped by Massa: “In 1990, aboard the U.S.S. Jouett, I was awakened when a senior officer, Lt. Commander Massa, seemed to be groping me. (I was a lieutenant at the time.) I believe he may have been drinking. I shouted at him and he left. I mentioned the incident to several other officers. I did not officially report it.”
Clarke says that Massa’s roommate, Tom Maxfield, was also assaulted. “Tom lived on upper bunk,” Clarke say. “When you’re on ship, you’re almost exhausted 24-7. So a lot of times you sleep with your uniform on. Tom and Massa shared a stateroom together. Massa climbed up on the top of his bunk, which is hard to do–you never crawl up on somebody else’s bunk. He wakes up to Massa undoing his pants trying to snorkel him.” Ron Moss also confirmed hearing this story from Maxfield. Maxfield did return calls and messages left for him–I’ll update if he does.
Massa’s shipmates didn’t turn him in for fear that he would retaliate. “He was a cocky guy, competent, but he saw himself as a future admiral,” Moss told me. “It doesn’t surprise me he wound up in Congress.”
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Sounds a lot like what Lonsberry claimed.
Doesn’t make Lonsberry correct when he said he sat on it for 2 cycles - or this info when shopped around wasn’t pushed through other venues.
This has become so darn sordid and tragic. If in fact he is gay, or bisexual–which I believe is a natural thing, frankly–how sad that it must be played out now on a public stage. The man is remarkable, like it or not; who ever–ever–would have thought that a reasonably short-term resident of the 29th C.D. would end up not just getting elected, but against an incumbent and in a PRESIDENTIAL year?!! The man is amazing. This is near-Shakespearan.
Lonsberry is not incorrect by virtue of sitting on the information. The fact that other venues didn’t pick up the info could be indicative of the ultra-left bias of many media outlets. Dirty politics is nothing new and the info may have remained in the bag until it was politically expedient to expose Massa.
When Lonsberry wrote about it, it was unsourced hearsay. This piece has direct quotes from actual people with names.
Woodward and Bernstein’s Watergate allegations were based on unsourced hearsay. We all know where that led.
Their stuff WAS sourced. They got stuff from Deep Throat.
I don’t have too much time to comment before work, and I don’t have any claims to what the ‘truth’ is. Just want to say that the title says ‘Navy Files’ - these claims, while they may be direct quotes from named sources, are not Navy files. In the interest of accuracy, please update it.
Good Point - I’ll change it from “Navy files” to something else