"... A journalist with RFE/RL says he was groped and accosted more than a decade ago by Russian lawmaker and perennial presidential candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky, an allegation that could add fuel to scattered calls among Russians for a serious examination of abuse allegations against lawmakers and other officials.
Renat Davletgildeyev's accusation comes after a parliamentary ethics commission exonerated another senior Russian Duma deputy within Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) of sexual-harassment allegations from at least three journalists.
In a Facebook post and a later interview with Current Time TV on March 22, Davletgildeyev described the alleged incident in 2006 involving the ultranationalist firebrand, saying Zhirinovsky "pawed at my [buttocks] so much that my hands were trembling as they held the recorder."...."As he was giving me a comment, he began to behave in an indecent way, touching my hands, shoulders, and my neck -- sorry, not neck, I'll give him that," he told Current Time. "He also touched my lower body parts, and then he left," he said, before adding that Zhirinovsky had touched his buttocks.
After, he said, men who he presumed were Zhirinovsky’s aides or security guards approached him and tried to persuade him to go to a sauna belonging to Zhirinovsky’s LDPR party."
