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    • Titusville mayoral candidate charged with theft over sign removal incident
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    Titusville mayoral candidate charged with theft over sign removal incident

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    Titusville mayoral candidate Vickie Conklin now faces two counts of theft after police say she illegally removed campaign signs placed by her opponent in the race, Andrew Connors.

    Conklin’s lawyer Scott Robinson said his client plans to fight the charges, which he believes were brought in bad faith as a politically motivated attempt to derail her campaign.

    According to a police report, Conklin removed the two large signs from the front lawn of the Titusville library on Oct. 22 when she discovered they were placed in front of the area she used for her campaign tent to greet voters earlier that day. and plan to use it the next day as well.

    One of the signs featured a photo of Conklin’s face and name misspelled with language that said she was endorsed by Brevard Democrats in the nonpartisan race. Conklin told police he believed the sign was put there as a form of harassment.

    She also said at the time that the signs did not carry a legal disclaimer stating who paid for them and were put there to prevent her from campaigning. Body camera footage of Conklin’s interactions with police show her admitting to removing the signs while believing she had the right to do so.

    When asked about the issue, Connors sent the following message to FLORIDA TODAY:

    “This situation is deeply disappointing. Campaigns should be about community engagement and focusing on the issues that matter. While we all expect spirited competition, acts of theft and dishonesty have no place in our elections. I appreciate the constant support of my friends. , family and the people of Titusville throughout this process. Let’s move forward with integrity and focus on the future of our city.”

    Connors said the signs Conklin removed had the required disclaimers stating who paid for them. FLORIDA TODAY has not seen the signs and cannot confirm that the declines were or were not there/

    When asked why she put up a sign with her opponent’s name and picture, Connors said the photo was taken from the Democratic Party’s Facebook page and that Conklin should be asked “why she is ashamed of her endorsement “.

    Conklin’s attorney vows to fight the “politically motivated” charges.

    Conklin’s attorney, Robinson, said Thursday that the signs were not removed as an attempt to sabotage her opponent’s campaign. He said they will gather more information to fight the charges, to which Conklin will plead not guilty.

    “From the get-go, it makes absolutely no sense,” Robinson said. “It’s really strange. It looks like it was investigated by a detective. With all the other things going on today, why do they have a detective investigating a second-degree felony?”

    With one of the signs featuring Conklin’s face and name, voters would have thought it belonged to her campaign, Robinson said. Without a legal disclaimer on the sign, Conklin herself risked an ethics complaint for a sign her campaign was not responsible for putting up, she told officers at the scene, according to a police report.

    Robinson described the situation as an example of “dirty politics” and said an outside agency should have been called in to conduct an investigation instead of allowing Titusville police to investigate candidates for city government.

    Controversies about campaign signs are common

    The recent events in Titusville are far from the first time campaign signs have become a flashpoint in a contentious election. Allegations of sign theft surface regularly. In 2018, the removal of campaign signs became a controversy in The cocoa mayor’s race leading to a call to the police.

    This election cycle, Democratic Party Chairwoman Pam Castellana said videos of Kamala Harris signs being removed and destroyed were reported to lawmakers without any action being taken.

    “Harris signs have been repeatedly defaced and last week a friend of mine happened to be passing by when she saw a guy cutting the Harris banner from the wooden stakes, take it and two Harris signs, he threw them in his truck and went down. the road with the signs flying out of his truck,” Castellana said.

    Castellana said the deputy said nothing could be done, citing a state law that prohibits campaign signs on any state or county right-of-way.

    To her, the Sheriff’s Office’s refusal to pursue an investigation into the incident demonstrated a double standard about the types of campaign sign violations that would be enforced.

    Tyler Vazquez is the Watchdog County Brevard and North Brevard reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Vazquez at 321-480-0854 or [email protected]

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