Arizona candidate says she was raped and thinks it may have been politically motivated

Bernadette Greene-Placentia said she was hit from behind and knocked unconscious before waking up to two men attacking her.

A Democratic congressional candidate in Arizona said she was raped in August while out fixing campaign signs along a road in the Phoenix metropolitan area, and she thinks the attack may have been politically motivated. Bernadette Greene-Placentia, 52, told the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office that she was returning to her car around 2 a.m. on Aug. 14 in Sun City when she was struck in the back of the head and raped by a man, according to an incident report obtained by NBC News. She said a second man also climbed on top of her before she tried to fight him off. Greene-Placentia, who is challenging Republican Rep. Abe Hamadeh in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District, reported the alleged assault to authorities on Aug.

31, more than two weeks after she said it occurred. Greene-Placentia told police she believed her attackers recognized her as a political figure, according to the incident report. She told NBC News on Wednesday that she recalled hearing one of the suspects saying “ick b—-,” which she said in her head filled in as “democratic b—-.” “Bernadette also recalled one of the male suspects stating, ‘democratic b—-,’ at some point during the incident but she did not clarify or recall when this may have been said,” the incident report states. Greene-Placentia told NBC News that she had