Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's Yale roommate says he believes 2nd accuser

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Tuesday, September 25, 2018
Brett Kavanaugh's Yale roommate says he believes second accuser
Brett Kavanaugh's Yale roommate says he supports the second woman accusing the judge of sexual misconduct, and that he respects her courage.

SAN MATEO, California -- The former roommate of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh says he believes the second woman accusing Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct.

James Roche says he was Kavanaugh's roommate at Yale in the Fall of 1983.

"We shared a two-bedroom unit in the basement of Lawrence Hall on the Old Campus," Roche said in a statement. "Despite our living conditions, Brett and I did not socialize beyond the first few days of freshman year. We talked at night as freshman roommates do and I would see him as he returned from nights out with his friends."

He went on to describe how Kavanaugh conducted himself while they shared a living space.

"It is from this experience that I concluded that although Brett was normally reserved, he was a notably heavy drinker, even by the standards of the time, and that he became aggressive and belligerent when he was very drunk," Roche wrote. "I did not observe the specific incident in question, but I do remember Brett frequently drinking excessively and becoming incoherently drunk."

Roche says he became friends with Debbie Ramirez, the woman who would later accuse Kavanaugh.

"She stood out as being exceptionally honest, with a trusting manner," Roche wrote. "As we got to know one another, I discovered that Debbie was very worried about fitting in. She felt that everyone at Yale was very rich, very smart and very sophisticated and that as a Puerto Rican woman from a less privileged background she was an outsider. Her response was to try hard to make friends and get along."

Roche said he does not consider himself to be a political person and went on to say he has no political agenda.

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