"Instead of going into the offices he suddenly reached over and he put his hand on my leg, under my skirt toward my genitals," she said. "He also pushed my head toward his crotch," she added. She said she told Cain to stop, adding that he did.
Bialek said she did not file a workplace complaint against Cain at the time because she was not employed.
She said she informed both her boyfriend, an unidentified pediatrician, and a longtime male friend.
Bialek appeared at a news conference alongside Gloria Allred, an attorney known for sexual harassment cases.
As if to blunt any attacks on her client's motives, the attorney described Bialek as a registered Republican, and a woman with a long and successful work history.
Bialek was employed for parts of 1996 and 1997 at the Educational Foundation of the National Restaurant Association, an industry trade group that Cain headed at the time. She said she first met him at an organization convention, interacting with him several times over the course of a few days.
She was fired from her job, and her boyfriend suggested she contact Cain in hopes he could help her find employment.
That led some time later - Bialek said mid-July 1997 - to a trip to Washington, where Cain upgraded her hotel room to a suite, and the unwanted sexual advance took place after they had gone to dinner.