“It was conduct most unbecoming of my position as a representative and as a human being and is not reflective of my 28 years of service and civility ... towards my colleagues,” Morrissey added.
Her apology was directed at state Representative Jim Carroll, a Bennington Democrat first elected in 2019. She did not explain why she was apologizing, but video recorded by a hidden camera appears to show that she had repeatedly poured water into Carroll’s tote bag as it hung in the State House, according to Carroll and a report last week in Seven Days, an alternative weekly newspaper covering Vermont.
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Morrissey, 67, did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
Carroll, 62, said the harassment began in January, during the opening week of this year’s legislative session, and included dozens of incidents. The first time he found his belongings wet, he thought the water might have come from snow that had fallen into his bag and melted, he said. When it kept happening, he realized someone was deliberately pouring water into his bag.
“What I then started to think is, ‘Who is doing it and why?’ I was obviously being targeted, and it [expletive] up my life,” Carroll said in an interview Wednesday. “I was paranoid. I was looking around at my fellow legislators, wondering who would do it.”
Carroll quickly came up with Morrissey’s name, he said, remembering that “she rarely missed an opportunity [to] say something snide” to him.
Carroll released two videos to Seven Days last week after initially refusing a request under the state public records law, the news outlet reported.
One of the videos, a 25-second clip dated April 26 that Seven Days posted to YouTube, appears to show Carroll stopping in the hallway to check his bag. Just seconds later, a woman identified as Morrissey, whose face is not visible, appears and quickly dumps a disposable plastic cup of liquid into the canvas tote.
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After Carroll recorded the video with a $23 spy camera, he took it to police and legislative leaders, including House Speaker Jill Krowinski, a Burlington Democrat, and minority leader Patricia McCoy, a Rutland Republican, who confronted Morrissey, he said. Carroll said Morrissey initially denied responsibility but later apologized to him privately.
“It looked like her face had just melted,” Carroll said. “She sat across from me, and it was like she was trying to make herself as tiny as she could, and she said, ‘I just want you to know how sorry I am.’”
“I just said, ‘Bull----,’” Carroll recalled. “I said, ‘The only reason you’re sorry is you got caught.’”
In response, Krowinski blocked Morrissey from serving on a legislative committee, Seven Days reported. Carroll said he filed a complaint with the House Ethics Panel.
Morrissey and Carroll were both born and raised in Bennington, where their families attended the same Catholic church and Carroll delivered the local newspaper to the Morrissey home as a child, receiving a generous tip at Christmas from Mary Morrissey’s mother, he said. Both families were involved in politics, and both lawmakers’ fathers held local office, Carroll said.
Carroll said he and Morrissey knew each other only vaguely, since she graduated high school before he entered it. But when he was elected to the Bennington Select Board, Morrissey told him his father would have been proud of him, bringing him to tears, he recalled.
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Yet any kindness from her ended after he joined the Legislature, he said. It first became apparent when the House was preparing to vote on a bill establishing the right to an abortion, which Carroll supported. Morrissey told him she had a 20-year-old letter opposing abortion that was written by Carroll’s late parents, who she said would be ashamed of him for supporting the bill.
“I was absolutely stunned that she would drag my parents from the grave,” Carroll said. “I’m still stunned to this day.”
In Carroll’s second term, Morrissey increased her animosity toward him, saying repeatedly when she was standing near him in the State House, “What is that smell?” and then recoiling from Carroll as other lawmakers looked on.
Given the history, Carroll said “it didn’t take long to stitch it together” that Morrissey, whom he referred to as “miserable,” was responsible for the dousings.
“But why? I don’t know why. ... I never have been anything but polite and courteous to her, to the point of almost being obsequious.”
Morrissey told Carroll she didn’t know why she had done it, which only angered him more, he said.
On Monday, Morrissey issued a public apology during a three-minute interlude near the start of a House veto session.
“I hope Jim, my legislative colleagues, all of our State House staff, and those who work in this building, and the citizens of Vermont can forgive me for my poor judgment and actions and allow me to take the necessary steps to repair what I have done,” Morrissey said.
Carroll responded on the House floor by saying that although Morrissey had put him through “five months of ... torment,” he was ready to move forward and work with her. Still, he acknowledged that the “first time that we sit down together, it’s going to be kind of awkward.”
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“To Representative Morrissey, I hear the sincerity in your voice, and I’ve got to be quite frank with you, and the body, and our constituents, and the people of Vermont, that for five months, I went through this,” he said. “And each time, each day that I went through this, Representative Morrissey had a choice to make. And each time ... she didn’t choose to either drop it, or to come to me and say, ‘Look, I’m sorry. I’ve screwed up. Let’s put our heads together, and try to serve our constituents the way they ought to be.’ And for that, I’m really sorry and sad that that happened.”
In the interview Wednesday, though, Carroll said he wasn’t convinced Morrissey’s contrition was sincere.
“I don’t think her apology holds any more water than my canvas bag,” he said.
Jeremy C. Fox can be reached at jeremy.fox@globe.com. Follow him @jeremycfox.
