TRUTH ALERT: Attorney general ad attacks challenger for college arrest
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
An attack ad from a political action committee backing Attorney General Andrew Bailey highlights his challenger's arrest while he was in college.
The ad from Liberty & Justice PAC puts the two candidates, Bailey and attorney Will Scharf, side-by-side in December 2007. While Bailey was deployed to Iraq with the U.S. Army, Scharf was facing criminal charges for a brawl at a party in Princeton, New Jersey. Those charges, however, were dropped by prosecutors.
AD: “2007, December 1st, Iraq. A battalion of American tanks patrols these streets, protecting our freedom abroad. Leading them? Andrew Bailey."
Bailey served in the Army's 1st Squadron 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. Bailey's campaign said the attorney general was stationed at Quyyarah West south of Mosul.
AD: "That same day, Princeton campus, the Charter Club. Will Scharf gets charged with selling alcohol to underage girls."
The Charter Club is a clubhouse at the Ivy League school that hosts social events for different student and alumni groups. The attack is based on a 2007 incident at the establishment where two girls allegedly got into a fight, according to reports from the Daily Princetonian.
Scharf faced charges as the president of the so-called "eating club" hosting the event that night. Prosecutors charged him with serving alcohol to minors and maintaining a public nuisance.
But Scharf's attorney, Rocco Cipparone, told ABC 17 News that Scharf was never present at the Charter Club that night. Cipparone said law enforcement would often start a case by charging one person and then replace them with the club in exchange for a guilty plea.
"To his credit in my opinion, Mr. Scharf rejected the 'easy way out' – with my concurring advice – and held his ground on the proper principles that the charges against him should be dismissed with no condition and without a deal to substitute the institutional defendant, because there was no evidence that Mr. Scharf committed any offense and certainly in our collective assessment the charges against him could not be established beyond a reasonable doubt," Cipparone said.
AD: "Andrew Bailey served his country with honor. Will Scharf threatened to sue the police who charged him.”
The attack is based on the fallout of that criminal case. Prosecutors dropped their case against Scharf. The Daily Princetonian reported that Scharf had put the Princeton Borough on notice of a potential lawsuit over malicious prosecution.
Cipparone said he did not believe Scharf ever went through with the lawsuit, but felt Scharf may have had a case.
"Indeed, to the extent that there was an indication that Mr. Scharf would consider civil action against the police or the township if acquitted, that was an appropriate consideration in my opinion given the above-referenced pattern and practice of civil rights violation, and in my assessment the unsupportable charges against Mr. Scharf," Cipparone told ABC 17 News.
The two face off in the Republican primary on Aug. 6.
