Content warning: sexual assault

Evelyn Yang, the wife of Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, recently came forward with her story alleging her OB/GYN of sexual assault.

“I imagined myself as someone, being you know, like I would throw a chair at him and run out yelling bloody murder … It’s not what happened,” Evelyn Yang told CNN, recalling how when she realized what was happening, she froze.

“In that moment I knew it was wrong,” Evelyn said. “I knew I was being assaulted.”

Following the alleged assault, Evelyn refrained from telling anyone about what happened, including her husband. She said she was afraid her husband would blame himself for not being able to go to appointments with her.  

After receiving a letter from her doctor’s office stating the doctor left the practice, she searched his name online. Evelyn found numerous other women who claimed they had been sexually assaulted. Evelyn described for CNN her relief when she realized she wasn’t suffering alone. After learning of the other women’s stories, she said she realized this was a serial predator, and he just picked her as his prey.

Upon learning this new information, she decided to finally tell her husband about what she had endured. She also got a lawyer. Altogether, 18 women, including Evelyn, testified against the doctor. In the end, the doctor was given a plea deal, pleading guilty to only two charges.

Evelyn said it wasn’t until the #MeToo movement took off and the Weinstein case became national news that sexual assault survivors realized they were betrayed twice.

“It’s like getting slapped in the face and then punched in the gut,” Evelyn told CNN. “The DA’s [District Attorney’s] office is meant to protect us, is meant to serve justice, and there was no justice here.”

After reading a letter a woman wrote to Andrew Yang about her sexual assault experience in the workplace, Evelyn decided that it was her time to speak up about what she had experienced as well.

With the presidential race picking up, Evelyn described for CNN how her personal life and growing public life are no longer separate, and the responsibility she felt she had to share her story.

“My experience with the sexual assault and then what happened, all that happened afterwards, is such a powerful and upsetting example of the truth that women are living with everyday,” Evelyn Yang told CNN, “I just happen to be able to have a platform to talk about it. I need to use that voice.”

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