A male aide on former Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker’s campaign has dropped his lawsuit against prominent conservative organizer Matt Schlapp, whom the aide previously accused of sexually assaulting him.
GOP operative Carlton Huffman filed a lawsuit last year against Schlapp and his wife, Mercedes Schlapp, seeking $9.4 million in damages related to alleged sexual battery and defamation. Huffman’s lawsuit accused Schlapp of “aggressively fondling” the aide’s “genital area in a sustained fashion” while the pair were alone in a car together in October 2022.
However, Huffman now says the claims in the suit were “the result of a complete misunderstanding.”
“I regret that the lawsuit caused pain to the Schlapp family,” Huffman said through a spokesperson for Schlapp.
Schlapp runs the American Conservative Union — the group responsible for organizing the Conservative Political Action Conference — and his wife, Mercedes, served as communications director for the Trump White House from 2017 to 2019.
The statement goes on to add that the Schlapps said public comments they made about Huffman after he filed his suit were “the result of a misunderstanding, which was regrettable.”
“Neither the Schlapps nor the ACU paid me anything to dismiss my claims against them,” the statement adds.
Schlapp had maintained his innocence all along.
“Our family was attacked, especially by a left-wing media that is focused on the destruction of conservatives regardless of the truth and the facts,” Schlapp said on Tuesday. “But we emerge from this ordeal stronger as husband and wife, stronger as parents to our five daughters, stronger as friends to those who stood by us.”
The lawsuit alleged the incident occurred when the plaintiff was tasked with driving Schlapp to a Walker campaign event in Perry, Ga. Schlapp was said to have invited the aide out for a drink. Afterwards, when Huffman drove him back to his hotel, Schlapp allegedly groped the staff member’s leg and crotch.
The morning after the incident allegedly occurred, the Huffman informed senior officials with the campaign about his encounter with Schlapp. Campaign officials purportedly then offered support to the aide and made arrangements for someone else to transport Schlapp.
“I did want to say I was uncomfortable with what happened last night,” the staffer wrote in a text to Schlapp, a screenshot of which was included in the lawsuit. “The campaign does have a driver who is available to get you to Macon and back to the airport.”
Schlapp then asked Huffman via text to give him a call before repeatedly calling the staffer himself, according to the lawsuit. Schlapp then failed to show up for a scheduled campaign event and did not ask the campaign about receiving a ride to the airport, the lawsuit says.
In the months after the lawsuit was filed, Huffman was accused of sexual assault by two women, aged 19 and 22, who alleged the 39-year-old Republican operative performed unwanted sexual acts on them.