The final weeks of election seasons are often filled with rough tactics and dirty tricks. As the I-Team first reported, law enforcement is investigating an alleged threat made against Supreme Court candidate Kris Pickering by her former campaign manager.
Now it appears the nastiness in that race has spilled over into other contests.
The phone lines are abuzz at the sign company owned by County Commission candidate Brian Scroggins, and not because business is so good. Rather, it's because of recorded robocalls being made to voters in his commission district.
The message urges voters to call Scroggins and lists his business phone number. It's a nightmare for his employees.
Ryan Erwin is Scroggins campaign manager. He is not surprised that Scroggins opponent Steve Sisolak would use robocalls to mess with Scroggins business. For one thing, he says, Sisolak has been a professional telemarketer for more than 20 years. For another, Erwin was also on the receiving end of similar calls.
Last week, the Sisolak campaign placed thousands of calls but made it seems as if the calls came from Erwin. Erwin's firm was flooded with angry calls.
"I think they thought it was funny and this is a great way to get the campaign manager from the other side. What they didn't figure is that this is highly unethical and probably illegal," said Erwin. "It amounts to identity theft. They used my name and phone number without my permission to deceive voters about who made the actual call."
Erwin says it can't be an accident that someone had to manually enter his name and number into the robocalls. He wonders if it might have been done because he is also the campaign manager for Kris Pickering, running for the Supreme Court.
Pickering recently went to law enforcement to report a threat allegedly made against her by her former campaign manager, Gary Gray, supposedly on behalf of the Laura Fitzsimmons law firm.
Pickering allowed the FBI to record her meeting with Gray at which the threat was allegedly delivered.
"I was trying to probe the details and get on the record what it was Gray felt he was bringing to me in the way of a proposal or a threat, and that occurred. He outlined who presented the proposition to him and on whose behalf, what would happen if I didn't sign," she said.
Attorney Laura Fitzsimons helped Steve Sisolak win a $20 million judgment from McCarran Airport. Gary Gray is Sisolak's campaign manager. All three now find themselves of interest to the FBI Agents and Metro Detectives investigating the threat against Pickering.
But Ryan Erwin isn't stopping there. He reported the fake phone calls using his ID to several agencies, including Metro, the FCC and Federal Trade Commission. He says he will also file complaints with the Attorney General and Secretary of State, even if a decision comes too late to help his candidates.
"I'm not going to give up on it. Laws are made to be enforced. People need to have ethics and abide by the law and we can't have people out there assuming identities to fool voters," he said.
A spokesman for the Sisolak campaign says the use of Ryan Erwin's phone number was a mistake and they apologized for it.
However, they add, the Brian Scroggins campaign used robocalls before the Sisolak campaign did, and they say Scroggins has mailed out scurrilous and false information about Sisolak several times in recent weeks.
Pickering allowed the FBI to record her meeting with Gray at which the threat was allegedly delivered.
Pickering recently went to law enforcement to report a threat allegedly made against her by her former campaign manager, Gary Gray.
