This past weekend, TBD reported that a nutty robocall went out slamming Councilmember Jim Graham. The call blasted the Ward One councilmember over having paid for Ted Loza‘s on-again, off-again girlfriend to have an abortion. TBD reported the call’s content:

“Paying to take a life is evil, especially when you weren’t even the parent,” the call’s narrator says. “Jim Graham is wretched, immoral, and doesn’t deserve to represent us. Let’s get a decent human being to fight for our children. Not kill them.”

If the robocall was trying to persuade residents to vote for someone other than Graham, it failed. It’s a safe bet that most Ward One Dems support a woman’s right to choose. Calling Graham “evil” and “immoral” will sway no one.

If they really wanted to delve into the Graham-Loza controversy, the as-yet-unknown folks behind the robocall could have  emphasized the allegation that Graham knew Loza had repeatedly abused his girlfriend. And he allegedly chose to ignore the abuse.

We reported on this incident last year. Here’s what we wrote:

“Loza’s behavior was troubling enough that the woman’s sister contacted his boss to help intervene. Graham’s reply to that entreaty: ‘Does this conduct involve his professional responsibilities o his behavior on personal issues? Bests Jim.’

The e-mail suggests that Graham had no interest in wading into this one. He didn’t succeed: By the end of the month, the woman had had the abortion, more than five months into the pregnancy….

The abortion didn’t work wonders for Loza’s relationship with the woman. According to a document filed by the woman’s lawyer, ‘within two weeks of the abortion Mr. Loza began sexually abusing her and assaulting her (often during sex).’ (The woman, through her sister, declined to comment.)

When the woman told Loza that she was pregnant again, in March 2007, Loza ‘reacted violently’ and ‘hit [the woman] on the head with the sole of a leather shoe, the type he wears to work,’ according to a judge’s finding. Loza then ‘pushed her against the wall’ while the woman crouched down to protect her unborn child from the beating.”

Maybe as troubling is Graham’s reaction to the whole thing. Since our story, he has repeatedly bashed Washington City Paper in private and in public as unethical. Actually, we found all our information in publicly available files at D.C. Superior Court.

But Graham tells TBD that the whole thing is “scurrilous, inaccurate, and very upsetting.”

I hope Graham isn’t referring to our reporting! The councilmember’s credit-card receipt paying for the abortion is on file in D.C. Superior Court. And the abuse allegations regarding Loza? Those are on file, too.

*file photo by Darrow Montgomery.