Mindy McGillivray of Palm Springs, Florida, said she is planning to leave the United States because she fears for her family's safety since she publicly accused Donald Trump earlier this week of groping her in 2003.
“We feel the backlash of the Trump supporters. It scares us. It intimidates us. We are in fear of our lives,’’ she said in an interview Friday with The Palm Beach Post.
McGillivray, 36, has been staying in a hotel during the three days since she told her story to The Palm Beach Post. She is one of at least four women across the United States who have accused Trump of inappropriately touching them. Trump has denied the accusations, calling them total fabrications.
But McGillivray said she got a scare Thursday night when she returned to the Palm Springs house she shares with her daughter and her stepfather to pick up clothes.
“I look out the window and there are cars just driving around the house and looking, slowing down right at the house,’’ she said.
“I don’t live in a gated community. This is dangerous. There could be people out there who want to hurt us.’’
She said the publicity has caused friction with her stepfather. It has also created problems in the family of the photographer who was with McGillivray the night of the alleged incident.
The photographer, Ken Davidoff, said he remembers McGillivray pulling him aside moments after the encounter to complain about the alleged groping, which he did not witness. McGillivray never reported the incident to authorities.
Davidoff’s brother, Daryl, said he thinks McGillivray is lying. He is angry at his brother because the publicity is hurting the family’s photography studio, whose clients include Trump supporters.
Ken Davidoff said he received a text from his brother, Daryl, who wrote that he had been contacted by a Trump attorney and “I agreed to make a statement, hope they put both of you away.’’
Despite the fallout, McGillivray said she has no regrets about going public with her story, which she did after she watched Trump say in a nationally televised debate that he has never groped women.
McGillivray gave an interview Thursday to CNN, for possible airing as early as Friday night, and she was planning to talk to other media outlets before leaving Florida.
She said wants the public to know that she has had problems in her past, including two felony arrests, a burglary charge when she was 17 and driving under the influence in 2012.
She said she still struggles with alcohol.
She said she is married to but estranged from a man who is has open felony charges against him in Palm Beach County and is now living in Canada. Her husband, Daniel V. Edery, was charged in 2008 and 2009 with separate counts of organized scheme to defraud, according to records.
McGillivray is not named in either charge. She said she was not aware of his alleged illegal activities. She said she is in contact with him because she receives alimony. She said there’s a chance she could go to Canada and stay with him for a while.
“I’m a real person. I’m not perfect,’’ she said, sitting on a couch with her 15-year-old daughter, Corina.
“I need to expose my ugly side. This isn’t for money. This isn’t for fame. This is to be honest with her.’’
But she said her problems should not detract from her accusation about what happened to her at Mar-a-Lago on Jan. 23, 2003, when she was helping Ken Davidoff photograph a Ray Charles concert.
After the show, she was standing in a group of people, including Trump, who she said was standing next to her but slightly behind her. She felt a hand on one of her buttocks. She initially thought she might have bumped against a camera bag but turned around and saw Trump behind her looking away.
“It was a grab. I could feel (a hand) on my cheek,’’ she said. “I turned really quickly and looked at him and he just looked on, like stone cold. If it was an accidental bump — we both felt it — he could have said, ‘Excuse me. I’m sorry,’ and backed up a little bit.’’
“I was intimidated when I was standing there. I’m a 23-year-old girl. I’m stiff as a board because someone just touched my butt and he doesn’t want to acknowledge it happened.’’
McGillivray has followed reports of other women who made similar accusations against Trump, including a woman who says she was touched inappropriately in 1979.
“I was born in the fall of ‘79,” McGillivray said. “It’s so twisted. It’s decades and decades of abuse that he thinks he can get away with and it’s got to come to a halt.”
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