Beshear, Coleman demand Rep. Grossberg to resign following Herald-Leader investigation

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Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear demanded state Rep. Daniel Grossberg to resign Friday, less than four hours after the Herald-Leader reported Grossberg has been permanently banned from a Louisville strip club for accosting a dancer and, weeks earlier, soliciting another for prostitution.

“I want to, once again, state clearly and unequivocally that Rep. Grossberg should resign,” Beshear said at a hastily called 9:30 a.m. news conference in Frankfort.

Beshear described Grossberg’s alleged conduct as wrong, and said no one should face harassment in their place of work — or the Kentucky Capitol.

“You cannot be a state representative and engage in this type of conduct,” he added. “No human being should engage in this type of conduct.”

Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman also promptly called for Grossberg to resign on Friday morning.

“Enough is enough. Women and girls in Kentucky deserve better and so do Rep. Grossberg’s constituents,” she said. “He has had ample opportunity to do the right thing by stepping aside, and if I were him, I’d take it sooner rather than later.”

Neither the governor nor his lieutenant governor have authority under Kentucky’s constitution to remove a legislator from office. But as the state’s two top-ranking Democrats, they have incredible influence in the direction of the party and those Democrats in office.

Kentucky Democratic Party Chair Colmon Elridge joined in the calls, part of a wave of angry calls for Grossberg’s resignation.

On the heels of demands for his resignation, the Herald-Leader contacted his lawyer, Anna Whites, for a comment. As of 11:30 a.m.., she has not responded.

However, Whites told Louisville Public Media she believe Grossberg will continue with the ethics complaint process in Frankfort and will “continue to do the job he was elected to do..”

She added, “Grossberg is not the first legislator to be accused of improper actions, but he is the first to be systematically denied the right to defend himself.”

Elridge said Grossberg “has repeatedly proven that he is unfit to serve and must resign from office.”

“Every individual deserves to be held accountable for their own actions — particularly those who represent Kentuckians in the halls of our Capitol,” he said.

At 6 a.m. Friday, the Herald-Leader reported Grossberg had been barred for life From Foxys Gentlemens Club in Louisville last winter for moving a dancer’s underwear and trying to touch her genitals as she was performing on stage.

“He was calling girls all kinds of names,” Foxys’ co-owner Milford Renfrow told the Herald-Leader. “Disrespecting the girls and grabbing them.”

After a club manager escorted Grossberg from the club to its parking lot off Berry Boulevard, he tried to use his status as a state legislator to get back in. When that failed, he warned he could close down the 24-year-old strip club.

“’You don’t know who I am,’” the club’s manager recalls Grossberg telling him. The freshman legislator also said he “could shut this place down.”

About two weeks before this incident, Grossberg also offered to pay another dancer at the Louisville strip club $5,000 to have sex with him — an offer she repeatedly declined.

The Herald-Leader’s story is based on 13 independent interviews with Foxys owner, as well as the club manager, two bartenders, two dancers and one of the dancer’s close friends who was told of Grossberg’s solicitation the night it happened.

The first-term Louisville Democrat has been ensnared in a growing controversy throughout the summer linked to his harassing, sexually charged texts and interactions with young women.

Over the past seven weeks, since the Herald-Leader published its first investigative story about Grossberg’s behavior, the legislator and his lawyer, Anna Whites, have steadfastly denied any impropriety.

The newspaper has reported accounts from six different women in Kentucky politics, including three who say his behavior over social media messages, texts and in-person encounters amounted to sexual harassment.

Friday’s allegations at Foxys come as Grossberg is under formal scrutiny from two separate investigations for alleged misconduct — one by the Legislative Research Commission, the legislature’s administrative arm, and another by the Legislative Ethics Commission.

The calls for his resignation continue to grow, including two of his accusers, whose experiences the Herald-Leader previously detailed anonymously.

In an op-ed column published Thursday in the Herald-Leader, Emma Curtis, whose running for a seat on Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council, said she decided to come forward publicly, “because I don’t want young women and girls in Kentucky to see sexual misconduct from elected officials go excused and, as a result, be deterred from seeking public office themselves.”

A second woman whose experience the Herald-Leader previously reported anonymously publicly identified herself Friday.

“Our party cannot continue to allow someone who exhibits the behavior he does to hold a seat in Frankfort,” Allison Wiseman, president of Kentucky Young Democrats, posted to X.

Beshear urged Grossberg to “consider” resigning after the Herald-Leader published its story containing Curtis’ and Wiseman’s experiences.

But on Friday, he left no room for ambiguity.

“We have numerous people coming forward with allegations that are absolutely unacceptable. It’s time,” Beshear said. “I had hoped that my previous comments would be heard and that he would listen to them and decide that this was what was best.

“Obviously, that didn’t happen.”

The governor continued, “I know some of these individuals, and I hate that they’ve gone through what they’ve gone through.

“I hope that people see or hear today that we will listen, that they will be believed, and that no one should use a position of authority to make anyone else feel unsafe or harassed. Now, it’s important that, in a world where we still see far too much conduct that’s just totally unacceptable, for people to know that if they choose to speak out, they’ll be heard.”

Beshear said Grossberg’s reported conduct was “wrong.”

“These allegations and the alleged conduct crossed the line in the first story, it crossed the line in (Friday’s Herald-Leader) story, the Democratic governor said.

“It’s too much. He needs to resign.”