Defense attorney Jonathan Jeffress, right, with his father, William H. Jeffress Jr., in Washington on Tuesday. testimony over what began as a consensual exchange with another defense attorney and ended in an indictment that rattled the District’s legal community.
at the time of the alleged assault worked at a smaller law firm, told the jury on Tuesday that she waited nearly a month to call police because Jeffress’s family was “known as legal royalty in D.C.” Lawyers for Jeffress cast the account the woman gave police as a manipulation of the facts fueled by her resentment toward him for not leaving his wife and toward his firm for twice rejecting her as a job applicant.The pair flirted intermittently over several months, the woman testified. She texted family and friends numerous times about the guy at work who she wrote “had a crush on me.” But she said she did not normally date men who were so much older.
The woman testified that while inside Jeffress’s vehicle, the two kissed and it was consensual. It was then, she testified, that Jeffress locked his right arm around her neck and groped her breast. “He then said, ‘I could pin you down,’” she recalled. “I didn’t take it as a threat. We were making out.”