The Spunky New Face of the 'Post'

Around that time, Pillsbury-Foster claims, Fund was "fired" from his editing job at the Journal, and her daughter moved to Manhattan. Fund stayed over many nights and even tried to move in, according to the mother. On February 19, Pillsbury-Foster flew into town for a visit.

That day, Pillsbury-Foster says, Fund and Morgan had a confrontation in Morgan's apartment. "He had come over and they had been arguing from noon until almost five o'clock when I arrived," the mother recalls, based on what her daughter told her. "He started shoving her around. What he wanted her to do was lie about the abuse. He wanted her to go to the media and say that she had lied."

The next morning, the mother says, she and a friend persuaded Morgan to go to the police and show them her bruises. When Fund heard the police were after him, the mother says, he "ended up hiding in the bathroom of the Manhattan Institute."

A Manhattan Institute spokesperson says Fund was working at his desk there on Thursday and Friday, but that no one is aware that he was hiding from the police.

A Journal spokesperson said that Fund has been on book leave since January and continues to write a weekly column for OpinionJournal.com.

Fund declined to comment. His attorney, Paul Windels, said that Fund denies the allegations categorically. Both men declined to comment on Pillsbury-Foster's account. Neither man responded to a request for the name of Fund's book publisher.

Asked her motives for exposing Fund, Pillsbury-Foster said, "I want my daughter to make sure that she's safe and get on with her life." As for Fund, she likens him to Bill Clinton and says, "He needs to tell the truth."

But given Morgan's silence, there is obviously more to this tale than meets the eye.