N.Y. Assemblyman Juan Ardila goes on the offensive to challenge sexual assault allegations, issues report

Months after being accused of sexual misconduct by two women, Assemblyman Juan Ardila is going on the offensive, issuing a categorical denial that he sexually assaulted anyone and releasing a self-funded report documenting witness accounts of what transpired.

The report, which Ardila (D-Queens) shared exclusively with the Daily News, does not argue that the incidents did not happen. Rather, it largely challenges the accusation that they were nonconsensual encounters — the first time Ardila has offered specific details in an attempt to rebut the claims.

He has also gone further in his public statements than he did when first accused. In his statements from March, Ardila said, “I apologize for my behavior,” that he was “deeply apologetic” and that there was “no excuse for my past behavior.”

But he did not, at that time, categorically deny engaging in sexual assault.

In a lengthy written statement and in an interview with The News, Ardila said he regretted his initial responses to the accusations and that he was guided by advisers who called for his resignation not long after offering their counsel.

“I did not sexually abuse anyone or engage in any sexual assault,” he said in his latest statement. “My primary focus was to ensure that any statement I made conveyed respect for a woman’s right to speak out while acknowledging and taking full responsibility for my behavior. But I also wanted to indicate in a respectful way that my behavior in no way constituted sexual misconduct.”

Halloween party allegations

The two women, who spoke anonymously to The News, both stood by their accounts of what transpired at a single 2015 Halloween party, initially reported by the Queens Chronicle. They say Ardila, 21 at the time, attempted to take advantage of them sexually, making advances toward one woman who was too intoxicated to consent and exposing himself to another without her consent.

Ardila’s first accuser, a Fordham University student at the time, told the Queens Chronicle in March that Ardila “got handsy” with her while sitting on a couch at the party. She recounted to The News that she was extremely intoxicated at the time and that her memory of what happened was informed, in part, by a friend who intervened when Ardila attempted to take her into a bathroom.

The friend, who also asked to remain anonymous, said she was sober during the party when she saw Ardila dragging her “noticeably and incredibly intoxicated” friend toward the bathroom.

“There is absolutely no way that he did not know that she was beyond drunk. At the time, she was less than 100 pounds. She was going through a lot. She was drinking heavily,” the accuser’s friend recalled in a phone interview with The News. “He was walking with a purpose, which is why I intervened. ... She was not aware of what was happening — not a chance.”

The second woman, who hadn’t spoken directly with reporters until agreeing to a recent interview with The News, said she was speaking with a group of people at the party when Ardila grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into the bathroom and began kissing her.

This, she said, occurred with no verbal pretext, flirting or direct conversation with Ardila. Once alone, she said, Ardila exposed himself and began masturbating — a claim that has not been made so explicitly until her interview with The News.

In her retelling, she described the situation as more awkward than threatening — but that she still views it as wildly inappropriate. She went on to say that her intent in initially relaying her story to the Queens Chronicle through the first accuser was not to hurt Ardila, but motivated by her view that he shouldn’t hold an elected position given what she experienced.

Law firm report

In response to the allegations, Ardila hired a law firm — Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney — to probe the matter. As part of its investigation, the firm interviewed 12 people who attended the party, including one of the two accusers and Ardila. Ardila said he paid for the report with his personal funds, but he declined to say how much it cost.

During his interview with lawyers, Ardila said his first accuser did not appear visibly intoxicated. A friend of Ardila’s, who attended the party and was interviewed by the law firm, described her as “alert and oriented to her circumstances” and “not incapable of walking or holding a conversation” after her encounter with Ardila.

“Ardila recalled that while sitting and talking with [her], after taking selfies, the two kissed,” the report states. “After the kiss, [she] asked him to accompany her to the bathroom to help her with her costume zipper. Mr. Ardila believed that [her] request for help with her zipper in the bathroom was an invitation for more intimate contact.”

The law firm interviewed staffers from Ardila’s team as well, one of whom spoke with Ardila after the accusations became public. During an interview with the law firm, that staffer said the accuser’s “female friend ... stopped them and ‘c---blocked’ ” Ardila.

Given that Ardila paid the law firm to conduct the investigation, his first accuser questioned its independence.

“You can say it’s c---blocking. I can say it’s preventing rape,” she said. “When someone is visibly so f---ing plastered they have no idea what’s going on — that is disgusting.”

Ardila also made a point of telling the law firm that she was wearing a “Playboy Bunny” costume — a point his accuser described as deeply problematic. “To me, it speaks to how Juan was thinking of me that night and probably justified why he did what he did, and now I think he’s trying to defame me, and that’s a very #askingforit, antiquated remnant of another era bulls—t,” she said.

Years after the incident, in 2018, Ardila apologized to the woman over Instagram, saying in a message that he wanted “to apologize for that night” and that he “was a jerk,” but he later told lawyers he did so because “he presumed” she had discovered he kissed another woman, his second accuser, on the same night and “because he was interested in her and they had not spoken in years” — a notion the woman scoffed at after The News relayed it to her.

Ardila’s account of what happened with his second accuser also diverges from hers.

In the report, Ardila described his encounter with his second accuser as consensual and claimed that they were flirting and that there was “definitely some chemistry between them” — a perspective she described as completely false.

“Mr. Ardila said that [she] went to the bathroom with him, they kissed, and he placed her hand on his crotch, over his pants,” the report states. “He said she reciprocated the kissing, which lasted a minute or two.”

Ardila denied pulling the woman into the bathroom, exposing himself or masturbating during the encounter.

The woman’s roommate at the time, who talked with Ardila’s lawyers and also spoke with The News anonymously, recalled that the second accuser described Ardila exposing himself, but that she didn’t recall her being “traumatized” over it. The roommate told the News she found the questions from the law firm “leading.”

Ardila’s accusers say the Queens lawmaker’s latest comments only make matters worse and that the report hasn’t changed their stance that he should resign.

“It did happen. It happened to me and it happened to the other woman, and he apologized — not only publicly in March — but he reached out to me in 2018 during the height of the #MeToo movement and also apologized and named that specific night,” the first accuser told The News. “This is someone who pretends to champion for vulnerable people, but he doesn’t — he takes advantage of them.”

‘Bad advice’

Since the initial accusations first surfaced in March, several high-profile elected officials have called on Ardila to resign, including Gov. Hochul, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Bronx, Queens) and Councilwoman Tiffany Caban (D-Queens).

Ardila said his decision not to categorically deny he had assaulted anyone was the result of bad political advice.

“As I shared my proposed statement with political allies, I was urged to drop the phrase ‘while my recollection of that night is different’ because I was told, since the original story broke, that denying the accusations was akin to attacking women and that I should, in their words, recognize that I have ‘caused harm,’ ‘address the harm,’ and express my ‘desire for and willingness to attain accountability,’ ” he said in his most recent written statement. “I fully recognize my actions were immature and regrettable, for which I am deeply embarrassed and truly sorry.”

In an interview with The News, Ardila added that “I should have denied the allegations in my initial statement” and that the advice he received included “a bunch of demands that I couldn’t believe what I was hearing” he told The News.

Ardila also lashed out at several former allies and his rivals — including AOC, who previously endorsed him, city Comptroller Brad Lander, who once employed him, and Councilwoman Julie Won (D-Queens).

Ardila claims that Lander, who ultimately called for his resignation, told him after the accusations became public that “it will only go in one direction for you.”

On AOC, he groused that he still hasn’t heard from her since the accusations became public.

“I texted Alexandria,” he said. “She didn’t even answer me.”

Won said Ardila alone is to blame for the situation.

“The facts are that he sexually assaulted two women — that we know of,” Won told The News. “He has to take responsibility and accountability for what he has done.”

Ardila also blamed the Working Families Party for giving him advice that he now says he shouldn’t have followed prior to making his initial responses. He claims party members steered him wrong in helping him craft a statement and then demanded he resign. To back that up, Ardila provided The News with group texts between himself and party members Sasha Neha Ahuja and Nina Luo in which they’re discussing his statement.

Neha Ahuja, a Working Families Party spokeswoman, called Ardila’s criticism a “distraction.”

“I had one conversation with him to address and understand the situation as it was unfolding. We did not advise on his statement. We encouraged him to take full accountability for his actions,” she said. “People who cause harm must take responsibility for their actions — period — regardless of their intent and regardless of their story.”