Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was accused of starting an altercation while he was a student at Yale, according to a 1985 police report obtained by CNN, after police responded “in regards to an assault.”
In the New Haven, Connecticut, police department report, a man named Dom Cozzolino said Kavanaugh had thrown ice on him and Kavanaugh’s friend Chris Dudley had thrown a glass that hit him in the ear.
“The argument between the two started when Mr. Cozzolino stated that Brett Kavanaugh threw ice at him for some unknown reason and he then got hit in the ear with a glass,” the report says.
Dudley denied the allegations, according to the report, “and Mr. Kavanaugh didn’t (want) to say if he threw the ice or not. “
The police report does not indicate whether anyone was arrested, and New Haven’s police chief, Anthony Campbell, told CNN there are no other records he is aware of involving Kavanaugh. The New York Times first reported the incident.
Following the release of the Times report, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders called the story “ridiculous.”
“Democrats desperately attack Judge Kavanaugh for throwing ice during college. What motivated New York Times reporter to write this ridiculous story? Throwing ice 33 years ago, or her opinion of Judge Kavanaugh in July?” Sanders said on Twitter, pointing to a tweet from New York Times reporter Emily Bazelon in July disassociating herself from praise of Kavanaugh.
Cozzolino “was bleeding from the right ear,” according to the report, and he was later treated at a local hospital. The incident reportedly occurred at a bar called Demery’s.
Dudley has spoken out in support of Kavanaugh’s nomination, and on Monday the White House released joint statements from him and a former Yale suite mate, Dan Murphy, rebutting any claims that Kavanaugh drank to the point of blacking out.
The White House did not immediately respond to requests from the Times for comment on Monday. Dudley also did not respond to the Times, and Cozzolino declined to comment to the newspaper.
Chad Ludington, a former classmate of Kavanaugh’s, has said Kavanaugh did not tell the truth about his drinking in his testimony Thursday to the Senate Judiciary Committee. In Ludington’s statement released Sunday he also mentions an altercation involving Kavanaugh: “On one of the last occasions I purposely socialized with Brett, I witnessed him respond to a semi-hostile remark, not by defusing the situation, but by throwing his beer in the man’s face.”
Ludington told CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time” anchor Chris Cuomo that the altercation happened after a UB40 concert, when he and a group of friends were drinking at Demery’s.
They were sitting near a man who they thought looked like the lead singer of UB40, Ali Campbell, and were trying to figure out whether it was him, Ludington told Cuomo.
The man noticed Ludington, Kavanaugh and the others looking at him and – according to Ludington – aggressively asked them to stop.
Ludington told Cuomo he initially remembered Kavanaugh then threw his beer at the man, but recently found out from the report that there were ice cubes in the thrown drink.
“We weren’t drinking water, so it must’ve been some sort of mixed drink,” Ludington told Cuomo.
The man next then “took a swing at Brett,” Ludington continued, and then they were “two guys fighting – that was all very quick.”
Dudley then took his drink and “proceeded to smash it up against the guy’s head,” Ludington recalled.
There was some shouting, and then the police showed up, Ludington said. They looked around and asked questions, he said, and then Dudley was put in a squad car and taken to jail.
CNN”s Majlie de Puy Kamp contributed to this report.