In an explosive allegation, a woman has claimed she and Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain had a 13-year extramarital affair.
She said the relationship lasted until shortly before the former businessman announced his candidacy for the White House several months ago.
"Here we go again. I didn't do anything wrong," Mr Cain said in a pre-emptive denial that lumped a detailed claim of a consensual affair in with earlier allegations of sexual harassment.
But the woman, Ginger White, said in an interview with Fox 5 Atlanta that over the years, Cain bought her plane tickets so she could join him in cities as far-flung as Palm Springs, California, and Atlanta.
"It was fun," said the 46-year-old woman. "It was something that took me away from my humdrum life at the time. And it was exciting."
Although Mr Cain flatly denied the affair, his lawyer issued a public statement that included no such denial and suggested that the media - and the public - had no business snooping into the details of consensual conduct between adults.
After the initial report and the candidate's denial, Ms White said Mr Cain was not being truthful when he said there had been no affair.
"That would be false," White said. "What I said in the interview was true."
Mr Cain's candidacy was soaring in the polls until he was hit less than a month ago with accusations that he sexually harassed several women and groped one while he was a high-ranking official at the National Restaurant Association.
He has since fallen back in public opinion surveys, and been eclipsed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in the race to emerge as the principal conservative alternative to former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.
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