This morning, Mayor Ed Murray published an op-ed claiming that the allegations of child rape against him—from three people—are politically motivated by opponents of gay rights.

In that op-ed, Murray claimed that the first accuser who came forward in 2008, Jeff Simpson, had tried to extort him, and when he failed, went to the media and government figures with the accusations. "The first accuser attempted to take his accusation public only after he sought payment from me," the mayor wrote. Murray also claimed that Simpson had a record of making false allegations against guardian figures.

To that, Simpson says: "This is just another smokescreen."

"It's hogwash," Simpson continued. "If that was really what happened, those would have been the allegations that he made in 2008—not that I wasn't credible, but that I'm trying to extort him."

At the end of 2007, Murray's then-attorney Katherine Heekin wrote a letter to Simpson's lawyer, Brian Williams, claiming that because of Simpson's extensive criminal history, he wasn't credible. Heekin also claimed that Simpson's civil suit had a statute of limitations issue. Williams later dropped the case.

On Thursday, Simpson's attorney clarified that he dropped the case because of the statute of limitations problem—not because he didn't find his client credible.

"My sense was that [Simpson] wanted people to know what had happened to him," Williams said. "So to the extent that people are accusing him of being a gold-digger, or wanting compensation then or now, I would disagree."

Williams even encouraged Simpson to go to the media with his allegations after he felt he had to drop the case.

As for Murray's claim that Simpson had lied to other guardian figures, Simpson said: "Nobody has ever sexually molested me besides Ed Murray. So no, absolutely no, I haven't made false allegations. There have been no investigations of sexual abuse other than him. And those are not false."

Simpson added that he would be willing to subject himself to a lie detector test if necessary. "I'm still here and I'm willing to do anything," he said.

For what it's worth: I also reached out to Murray's lawyer, Bob Sulkin, and his public relations consultant, Jeff Reading, with a detailed list of questions the day before my story on Simpson was published. In response, Sulkin directed me to Heekin, Murray's former attorney, and then sent KING 5 a kind letter Simpson had once written to Ed Murray in 2005.

Jeff Reading did send back a response to my questions about the nature of Murray's and Simpson's relationship in the '80s, but did not once mention a claim about extortion or Simpson making false allegations against guardian figures. He then sent me a detailed list of Simpson's mental health and criminal history, of which I was already aware.