The Salt Lake City Tribune is reporting that an openly lesbian city council member running for Congress has been accused by four women of making "unwanted sexual advances."
Lopez Chavez says that "nothing inappropriate" happened between her and three other women, while the alleged contact with the fourth woman never occurred.
"Victoria Petro, who is Lopez Chavez’s fellow City Council member; Maggie Regier, who worked on Stan Penfold’s mayoral campaign in 2019; Hoang Nguyen, who is now a state representative; and Jen Plumb, now a state senator, described their allegations in interviews with The Salt Lake Tribune," reports the newspaper. The incidents all occurred before Lopez Chavez joined the Salt Lake City City Council in 2023. Petro, Regier and Nguyen all said they told others of the sexual advances by Lopez Chavez.
None of the four reported the interactions to police or spoke about them publicly until now. They said they decided to come forward, in part, because of Lopez Chavez’s candidacy for Congress in Utah’s new 1st District and after her reaction to newly disclosed online posts that fellow candidate Nate Blouin made between 2009 and 2015, including statements that minimized sexual assault.
In her statement in response to Blouin’s posts, Lopez Chavez described herself as a survivor of domestic violence and sexual assault and said Blouin should drop out of the race. Leadership, she said, is “defined by integrity and consistency — especially in how we treat women and respond to harm.”
She added: “Our communities deserve leaders who take these issues seriously — not just in rhetoric but in conduct. We cannot excuse behavior — past or present — that trivializes or undermines the seriousness of sexual violence, assault and harassment.”
Salt Lake City Councilwoman Eva Lopez Chavez, now a Democrat congressional candidate, once described herself as “a Mexican lesbian shaping downtown.”
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) April 23, 2026
She is now facing allegations from four women, including three elected officials, who say she restrained them during advances… pic.twitter.com/U1WkvaNC7a
One of the victims of the unwanted sexual advances described what happened during her interaction with Lopez Chavez.
“If a man had done that to me, would there be a question if it was assault or not?” Petro said to the Tribune. She said that López Chávez pushed her against a wall during a September 2022 party and told her, “The only reason I still f**k men is that a woman hasn’t shown me what I really want.”
Yikes.
Democratic Utah state Sen. Jen Plumb says that Lopez Chavez pushed her against a wall and asked if she was “sure” she wasn’t attracted to women.
“I’ve got to do some work on why I saw it that way, but I would not be comfortable with someone doing that to my daughter, to my mom, my best friends and I’m not comfortable with it being brushed away anymore,” Plumb told the Tribune, saying that López Chávez definitely made “a sexual advance.”
Even after what would amount to an assault if a man did the same thing to her, Plumb has to work in the idea that it was partly her fault she saw it that way.
Maggie Regier was also pushed against a wall after Lopez Chavez was "flirty" with her, and a friend had to step between them.
“If she wants to run for Congress, then she needs to be held to a behavioral standard,” she told the Tribune. “Especially if she’s going to call out other candidates to be held to some sort of behavioral standard. And it’s just this pattern of behavior.”
Democratic Utah state Rep. Hoang Nguyen, who also runs a medical cannabis company and works in a investment group, recounted a 2022 incident in which she and López Chávez were departing from a campaign event for Plumb. López Chávez asked Nguyen for a ride to her car before asking Nguyen to pull over, the state lawmaker told the Tribune.
“Next thing I know she has leaned over and she’s on top of me, holding my shoulders down,” Nguyen said. “I said, ‘What are you doing?’ And she said, ‘Kiss me.’ She said, ‘I’m not going to get off you until you kiss me.’ I gave her a peck and she got off.”
She'd get 3-5 years in Illinois if she pulled a stunt like that.
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