BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — Sen. Rand Paul is recovering from five broken ribs and bruises to his lungs, and it is unclear when he will return to Washington, aides said Sunday, signaling that injuries he sustained Friday are far more severe than initially thought.
The second-term Republican senator from Kentucky and 2016 presidential candidate was attacked, allegedly by a next-door neighbor, Rene Boucher, 59, who was charged with fourth-degree assault.
Paul made his first public comments since the incident on Sunday, tweeting that his wife “Kelley and I appreciate the overwhelming support after Friday’s unfortunate event. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.”
Doug Stafford, Paul’s chief of staff, said in a statement Sunday that the senator has five rib fractures, including three displaced fractures, meaning the bones are partly or completely cracked.
“This type of injury is caused by high velocity severe force. It is not clear exactly how soon he will return to work, as the pain is considerable as is the difficulty in getting around, including flying,” Stafford said.
This photo provided by the Warren County, Ky. Regional Jail shows Rene Boucher, who was arrested and charged with assaulting and injuring Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.). (AP)
Paul has lung contusions, or bruises, caused by the broken ribs, Stafford said. He could not say whether one lung was bruised or both, but said Paul’s recovery could last several months. Such fractures can cause other significant medical problems, including internal bleeding, damage to other organs or pneumonia.
The nature of the dispute between Paul and Boucher remained a mystery Sunday to locals who know both men as medical professionals based in this southwestern Kentucky town.
Paul is an ophthalmologist who has practiced in town since moving here with his wife in 1993. He continues to provide free medical care to low-income Kentucky residents on a regular basis throughout the year when the Senate is not in session.
Boucher is an anesthesiologist and the inventor of the Therm-a-Vest, a cloth vest partly filled with rice and secured with Velcro straps that is designed to help with back pain. He has worked at several local medical facilities through the years, according to public health records.
David Ciochetty, a doctor with Interventional Pain Specialists in Bowling Green, said in an interview Sunday that Boucher worked there as a “general pain medicine physician” for about a year and a half beginning in January 2010 before leaving.
Asked whether he knew what might cause Boucher to lash out, Ciochetty said, “The rest of Bowling Green would like to know that, too. I was quite surprised to see this in the news.”
Ciochetty said Boucher used to work as an anesthesiologist at the hospital but “told people that he sustained a neck injury and could not continue his anesthesiology duties.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) speaks to reporters outside the White House after golfing with President Trump on Oct. 15. (Andrew Harnik/AP)
After Boucher left IPS, Ciochetty did not hear of him practicing anywhere else.
Paul had full staff privileges at the hospital when Boucher worked there, so Paul and Boucher “must have worked together at some point,” Ciochetty said.
Boucher was released Saturday on $7,500 bond, according to county jail records. He is scheduled to appear in court Nov. 9.
A motive is not known, and there is no indication that the attack was political in nature.
Jeff Jones, a registered nurse who worked with Boucher at the Bowling Green Medical Center, described Boucher’s politics as “liberal.”
“He was active on social media and said some negative things about the Republican agenda,” Jones said.
“I think it was unfortunate that they lived so close together,” he added.
A Facebook page that appeared to be Boucher’s included links to articles and memes critical of President Trump and a news article about a Montana Republican congressional candidate who attacked a reporter the day before winning his seat. The page said Boucher is a former Army pain-management specialist and graduated from the College of Osteopathic Medicine in Des Moines in 1984.
By late Saturday, the page had been overrun by other Facebook users criticizing Boucher for the alleged assault. On Sunday, the page appeared to be blocked from public view.
Jim Bullington, a former member of the city commission, knows both men. He said Sunday that Boucher is divorced and lives alone. Bullington described Boucher as a socialist.
“He’s pretty much the opposite of Rand Paul in every way,” Bullington said in an interview.
The neighbors had been known to have “heated discussions” about health care, Bullington said, adding that Boucher is an advocate of a national health system.
Paul, an outspoken libertarian, voted last summer against a Republican plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act, saying the plan didn’t go far enough in repealing the 2010 health-care law.
Robert Porter, a friend of Paul’s, said late Saturday that the senator was mowing his lawn moments before the attack.
Paul and Boucher live side by side along a small lake in Rivergreen, a close-knit gated community with large houses. On Sunday afternoon, nobody answered at Boucher’s home. Next door at the Paul residence, four people were seen doing yard work. Other neighbors were out walking, enjoying the unseasonably warm weather.
The senator joins a growing list of lawmakers in both parties who have been attacked or threatened with violence this year. Congressional security officials have investigated thousands of general or specific threats against Democratic and Republican lawmakers.
The threats turned to violence during the summer when House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) was nearly killed by a gunman who showed up at a congressional baseball practice in Alexandria, Va.
Paul, a member of the team, was on the field at the time of the shooting but was not hurt.
More recently, Rep. Frederica S. Wilson (D-Fla.) skipped several days of votes after threats were made against her after she sparred with Trump over the treatment of the widow of a U.S. soldier killed in Niger.
O’Keefe reported from Washington. Alice Crites, Caitlin Dewey and David Weigel contributed to this report.
Three more men have come forward to accuse actor Kevin Spacey of inappropriate sexual conduct in the wake of mounting allegations of harassment against the “House of Cards” star.
The men who came forward met Spacey several years ago. One was a minor at the time of the inappropriate contact, and another was a journalist who alleges Spacey screamed at him for not “wanting to f–k him,” according to a story published by BuzzFeed News on Friday.
The journalist, who wanted to remain anonymous to protect his career, told BuzzFeed News he interviewed Spacey for a story in the early 2000s in his office at the Old Vic and later found himself being yelled in the middle of a bar at by the actor for not wanting to have sex with him.
“He was charming and doing impressions of Jack Lemmon and so on,” he said of the in-office encounter.
But after taking Spacey up on an offer to go out for some drinks, the actor started aggresively grabbing his genitals.
“He just kept reaching between my legs and, you know, just grabbing my d–k,” he told BuzzFeed News. “I would move his hand away, and say something that I thought was pretending was funny or whatever at first. And then I was starting to get annoyed by it, and that was pretty clear.”
The journalist even attempted to leave, but Spacey kept trying to make him stay.
“I ended up sitting back down. He kept rubbing my leg. I moved seats. He came over and sat next to me again. I was trying not to make a big scene, because I had an assignment to write about him,” the man stated.
The man also shared that no one with Spacey appeared to react to his behavior — and instead chose to turn a blind eye.
“(Spacey) came out after me and literally stood between me and the door,” he said. “This man (Spacey) was screaming in my face outside of the main bar area, red-faced, spit flying out of his mouth, screaming at me with fury because I didn’t want to f–k him. He was actually saying that I did want to and I was a coward. That was his tactic. It was unbelievable.”
The journalist recounted the story to his editor, who confirmed hearing it to BuzzFeed.
Both the journalist and editor, working at an unidentified national magazine, were ready to move forward with the story when the reporter had a realization: the story would out Spacey as gay.
“It has occurred to me since then that there’s this weird way that Spacey had discovered that the closet would shield other things,” the journalist said. “Being closeted has for him enabled him to use this privacy claim as a shield against anybody looking closely at his actual behavior. And then it may have served as this strange, protective mechanism, to say, ‘My whole sexual life is off limits because of my sexuality.”
Justin Dawes, who was 16 in 1988, met Spacey at the play “National Anthems” and was invited to his apartment to watch Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown.”
Instead when they arrived they were offered drinks while porn was playing on the TV.
“We all had a drink, and we were kind of like, ‘Oh, no one else is coming?’ And he’s like, ‘Oh, no one else decided to come,’ and he never mentioned that this porn was playing. It was really awkward,” Dawes told BuzzFeed News.
Dawes shared that Spacey, who was 29 at the time, was well-aware he was in high school. He called the experience “cringey” but “benign.”
He also added that though Spacey was “sleazy and manipulative” it was not as if the star was pushy.
Dawes, who is straight, admitted he may have given Spacey the wrong impression.
“I think I had this weird kinda like, Oh gee. Oh man, I feel bad.”
Dawes and his friend decided to leave and never interacted with Spacey after that day.
He also told BuzzFeed maybe he “should’ve realized” Spacey wanted him over for sex.
“Like maybe this was kind of a coded thing or something that I agreed to.”
A third man named Mark Ebenhoch said outing Spacey also held him back from telling his story.
Ebenhoch was a 35-year-old military adviser working on Spacey’s film, “Outbreak” — which also starred Dustin Hoffman — when an assistant of Spacey’s invited him to the actor’s trailer “to flat out engage in a sexual act.”
“It was enough to stun me. It blew me away,” he said.
Ebenhoch, who is now openly gay, was not at the time. He said he turned down the proposition and never went anywhere near Spacey on set after that.
“As a military adviser the last thing you’d want anyone to know is that you were gay,” he said.
A friend of Ebenhoch, Roy Locke, confirmed he had told him the story at the time.
Dawes, Ebenhoch and the anonymous journalist are just three of several men who have come forward accusing Spacey of similar behavior.
Actor Anthony Rapp first publicly accused Spacey of trying to seduce him when he was just 14 in an interview with BuzzFeed News.
Eight Netflix employees recently accused Spacey of targeting young male staffers on set with “predatory” behavior, CNN reported.
One account alleged Spacey put his hands down a staffer’s pants.
Since the allegations have come to light, Spacey admitted he has chosen to live his life as a gay man and is now seeking evaluation and treatment.
Netflix has since cut all ties with the actor and removed him from promotional images for its hit series “House of Cards.”