A Maggie Valley business owner, currently vying for appointment as alderman, was recently charged with assault on a female against an employee.

Charlie Meadows, owner of Charlie’s restaurant, has been accused of putting his hands down a female employee’s pants and pulling her thong until it ripped, according to police reports at the Maggie Valley Police Department.

The girl told police the incident occurred Friday, Aug. 31, when she was bending down at work. Moments earlier, Meadows had warned her by saying if she did not hide her underwear he would “give her a wedgie.”

She told police she had been fired Sept. 4 because “she was taking up for one of her friends that Charlie had also been making sexual comments about to the customers.”

But Meadows says the girl lied about the assault as an ...