CongressionalBadBoys.com | home | Massa Eric Massa Democrat, New York (2008-March 2010) Wow, that was fast.  In early March 2010, reports surfaced that the House Ethics committee was investigating Massa on charges of sexual harassment of a male staffer.  (Shades of Mark Foley, perhaps?).   Just days afterwards, Massa, a first-term Democrat from upstate New York announced he would resign.  Earlier, he said he would not seek a second term, because of a cancer scare in December 2009.  A Massa aide, Ronald Hikel, former deputy chief of staff and legislative director, went to the office of Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on February 8 with an allegation that Massa had harassed a junior male staffer in the congressman's personal office.  Hoyer's office told Hikel to go to the Ethics committee or Hoyer himself would do so. Massa announced on Friday, March 5, 2010, that he would resign the following Monday.  He acknowledged that he used language that might have made staffers uncomfortable, but he did not specifically address any allegations of sexual harassment. "I own this reality.  There is no doubt in my mind that I did in fact, use language in the privacy of my own home and in my inner office that, after 24 years in the Navy, might make a Chief Petty Officer feel uncomfortable," Massa said.  "In fact, there is no doubt that this Ethics issue is my fault and mine alone.  But in the incredibly toxic atmosphere that is Washington, D.C., with the destruction of our elected leaders having become a blood sport, especially in talk radio and on the Internet, there is also no doubt that an Ethics investigation would tear my family and my staff apart." Sources:  John Bresnahan and Glenn Thrush, "Rep. Massa to Resign," Politico, March 5, 2010.