[A] candidate for Addison County sheriff has violated the Hatch Act, a law prohibiting some public officials from using federal resources for electoral gain.
The decision was made by the US Office of Special Counsel on September 26, and obtained by VTDigger this week. The Addison Independent had previously reported on the complaint.
The wrongdoing occurred when Peter Newton, currently a lieutenant sheriff in Addison County, posted photos of himself in uniform to his campaign Facebook page. During the time the photo was taken and posted, Newton was working under a federal grant to boost local domestic violence response efforts.
The Hatch Act, officially called the Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities, bars some federal officials, such as law enforcement officers, from using their positions to intimidate people into voting for them, or otherwise sway the election using public resources.
“OSC found evidence that, while still working under the federal WomanSafe grant, Mr. Newton used photograph of himself in his official uniform for campaign purposes,” said a letter regarding the decision from Erica Hamrick, deputy chief of the OSC’s Hatch Act unit.
“Specifically, he used such photograph on his campaign Facebook page. Accordingly, OSC has concluded that Mr. Newton violated the Hatch Act,” Hamrick continued.
The OSC said that because funding for the WomanSafe grant was no longer active, it was not handing down any punishment.
“Because he is not currently covered by the Hatch Act and we have no evidence that his violation as knowing and willful, we have decided to close our file without further action,” the letter said.
However, Hamrick said that if Newton violated the rules again while working under a federal program, it would be considered willful and he would be removed from the job.
Newton said in a telephone interview Thursday that the anonymous complaint was an effort to “slander” him, and that the violation was on a “technicality”.
He explained that he had been working 20 hours a week as an investigator for the WomanSafe program, through federal grant to the sheriff’s office, assisting the Addison County State’s Attorney office in sexual assault and domestic violence investigations.
Newton said he had asked State’s Attorney Dennis Wygmans about whether there might be any potential problems with the Hatch Act if he ran for sheriff, and they believed that as long as he was only working part time for the federal program there would be no problem.
Wygmans said that he advised Newton that he would be OK as long as he didn’t campaign while carrying out his duties for the program. The state’s attorney said the issue of posting photos onto a campaign social media page had not been part of his advice on the matter.
“I don’t know enough detail in order to really analyze why it was a violation,” Wygmans said of the decision.
Newton, who ran as a Democrat but also secured the Republican nomination through write-ins, said the original complaint was inaccurate. “Their complaint was that I was campaigning on grant time that I was working, which is totally untrue,” he said.
He said the complaint was filed by a political opponent, though he declined to name them. “They are a police officer and they are involved in one of the other candidate’s campaign,” he said, adding that he would release more information after the election.
The Addison Independent reported that lawyer James Foley was seeking records on behalf of the sheriff’s office to figure out who filed the complaint.
Newton said he didn’t think voters would hold the violation against him when they go to the polls.
“There isn’t a candidate out there running for sheriff who hasn’t posted a photo of themselves in uniform,” he said. “Most people have common sense. They can also read through the lines and know this is an attempt to smear his name during the campaign.”
Kevin Gibbs, an independent running for the county sheriff’s seat, said he knew nothing about who filed the complaint, but didn’t agree with how Newton was characterizing it.
“If a complaint was made to them and there was a violation, I wouldn’t call that a smear, I would call that an investigation that found wrongdoing of some sort,” he said.
Gibbs, the former Bristol police chief, said that he saw the violation as being part of a broader trend of intimidation from Newton’s campaign.
He said he had talked to numerous voters who said they were made uncomfortable by uniformed sheriff’s deputies going door to door asking to put Newton signs on their lawns.
“I’ve seen a lot of stuff that makes me roll my eyes in this campaign process,” he said.
Newton said that he had not directed any of his deputies to campaign on his behalf. “If they are doing it, they’re doing it because they want to — and on their own time,” he said.
