Ex-Campaign Worker Denies Sex Charges in Rep. Reynolds Case

CHICAGO —  A former campaign worker for Rep. Mel Reynolds (D-Ill.) on Thursday denied testimony by Reynolds’ teen-age accuser that the three of them had sex.

Sophia Green also said she had never even seen Reynolds and the teen-ager, Beverly Heard, together.

Prosecutors responded with records showing that Reynolds paid Green’s apartment rent for nearly a year and sent her $550 last August, the same month he was indicted.

Green said she has been a good friend of Reynolds and his wife, Marisol, since volunteering for his campaign in 1991. She said she met Heard when Heard started volunteer work for Reynolds in 1992.

She repeatedly answered “no” and “never” when defense attorney Ed Genson asked if she had ever had sex with Reynolds or Heard.

Green claimed that she broke off her two-month friendship with Heard after Heard made a sexual advance toward her. She also said investigators tried to pressure her into testifying against Reynolds.

Heard, 19, testified last week that she and Reynolds had sex with Green in 1992 and 1993, twice at his Chicago office and once at a hotel. In addition, Reynolds talked to Heard about sexual encounters with Green in conversations recorded by police and played at the trial.

Reynolds, 43, is charged with having sex with Heard when she was underage--16 and 17--asking her to obtain child pornography for him and then having her leave the state and sign false affidavits recanting the accusations.

During Thursday’s testimony, prosecutor Andrea Zopp suggested that it was odd that Reynolds or his campaign paid for Green’s rent and sent her money if she was volunteering and running errands for her “good friends.”

“You’re turning it around, making it sound like they owed me something,” Green responded.

Green testified that investigators badgered her and held her at the state’s attorney’s office against her will for an entire day last summer. She said a detective threatened to see her thrown in jail and her son taken away if she lied about her relationship with Reynolds.

Zopp pointed out that Green was never jailed and that her son was never taken.