4. Grover Cleveland, Date Rapist
In an earlier entry, we saw Grover Cleveland grooming an infant into his eventual bride. However, that might not have been the skeeviest thing Cleveland ever did: he was alleged to have raped and impregnated an acquaintance. It began with a chance street encounter in Buffalo, New York, on the evening of December 15th, 1873. That was when Maria Halpin ran into Cleveland, then a bigshot attorney and former Sheriff of Erie County, which included Buffalo. Cleveland, a stocky six footer who had been courting Halpin for months, invited her to dinner at a restaurant, and she accepted.
After a pleasant meal, Cleveland escorted Halpin back to her boarding house, and there, things got ugly. According to Halpin, Cleveland sexually assaulted her “by use of force and violence and without my consent“. When she threatened to report the rape, the former sheriff threatened her into silence. As her affidavit continued, Cleveland: “told me he was determined to ruin me if it cost him $10,000, if he was hanged by the neck for it. I then and there told him that I never wanted to see him again, and commanded him to leave my room, which he did“.
