Salient

He says, she says continues as voting underway Salient growing weary

By Seonah Choi | 29 Sep, 2008

Current VUWSA President Joel Cosgrove has made a string of accusations against Sonny Thomas – one of the candidates vying to succeed him in the role – who has dismissed the allegations as a “distraction tactic.”

Cosgrove, who has publicly announced his support for Thomas’ competitor Jasmine Freemantle, alleges that Thomas verbally abused him and launched personal attacks against Freemantle on two separate occasions.

The first, according to Cosgrove, took place on 16 September, when Thomas became aware of Freemantle’s bid for the presidency. “He said, ‘Jasmine can’t be standing, that’s outrageous. She’s not fit,’” Cosgrove said. “He proceeded to make personal comments about [Freemantle] that I personally found very offensive.”

“He was shaking all over… walking around, shaking his head and yelling. I think he just expected to coast into the [presidency].”

The second instance occurred the following evening, after the exec meeting. “He pigeonholed me outside my office and yelled and abused me, saying ‘I’d fucked everything up.’ Every second word was ‘fuck,” Cosgrove said.

“He abused me for a good five minutes, in my face and just lost it. He said some of the most feral shit I’d ever thought someone would put out. He went off his head… He was foaming at the mouth sort of thing. Then he stormed off and I had [his] spit on my face.”

Thomas conceded that he “may” have described Freemantle as unfit for the job, but pointed out that with the voting underway, “people need to focus on election.”

“This is just a distraction tactic by [Cosgrove],” he said. “I don’t recall [the first occasion alleged by Cosgrove]. [On the second occasion], I had a conversation with him and I told him how incompetent he was.”

Thomas admitted yelling at Cosgrove, but explained that Cosgrove had “made mistake after mistake.”

“And he relied on me, then when I needed his support I didn’t have it.” Thomas said that during the preceding Exec meeting, Cosgrove had failed support him against a motion that had removed his voting power on the panel compiled to determine the outcome of the Change Proposal.

“I told him what I thought of him.”

Thomas strongly asserted, however, that all comments that he had made were about Cosgrove, and not about Freemantle. “It wasn’t about Jasmine.”