Dennison says Allen is more desperate and pathetic

Richard Dennison, the undertaker/lawyer challenging Diane Allen for State Senate in the 7th district, says that representatives of the Burlington County Prosecutors office visited a 17-year-old campaign volunteer at his high school to question him about a stolen campaign sign complaint from Allen's campaign.

A copy of Dennison's email explaining the situation:

[Name withheld], the campaign volunteer I referred to in my letter to Diane Allen of Monday night (i.e. the volunteer who saw my signs being stolen), had two representatives of the Burlington County Prosecutors Office visit him today.

The reason?

One of Diane Allen's people filed a complaint against him for stealing and destroying her signs.

It gets worse...

[Name withheld] is 17 years old and was visited today by these members of the prosecutor's office during school hours at his school, [XX] High School in [XX]. He was, quite obviously, frightened and embarrassed. Fortunately, Holy Cross told the members of the prosecutor's office that they couldn't question him during school hours unless they were prepared to arrest him. They were not. So, after school, they met him at his Burlington City home, which he shares with his mother, who happens to be a hard-working widow. This, naturally, frightened his mother and sent her into a panic state in which she likely still remains. He then had to follow these individuals over to the prosecutor's office in Mount Holly.

Thankfully, he was able to reach me and I rushed over to Mount Holly and I helped sort everything out with the prosecutor's office. They admitted that the charge was absolutely baseless and surmised, as I have, that it more than likely came as retribution for my threat to file suit against those responsible for stealing my signs.

I should note that as far as I can recall, [Name withheld], never had anything to do with the placement of any of my signs. He was clearly targeted with this baseless complaint because his name was included in my email to Diane Allen as a witness who had viewed someone almost certainly associated with Diane Allen's campaign steal my signs and replace them with "Allen, Propp, Griffin" signs.

Due to his age, I do not wish his name to be mentioned and I regret that I included it within my original email (which, incidentally, was never meant to be quoted by any news organization, including politicsnj.com).

I am outraged that a hard-working 17-year old who cares enough about the political process to lend a hand to my campaign has been hurt, as has his mother.

If Wally wishes to be "fair and balanced," he ought to take ten times the umbrage he took with my mere writing a letter to Diane Allen threatening to file a police report if my signs weren't returned.

For the record, I haven't yet filed any reports/complaints and wouldn't until I had hard proof (e.g., a license plate number). My email to Allen was meant, in a very serious way, to induce her to check around and see who the individual in the silver Chrysler minivan might have been and have him return my signs to me. That surely would have been what she would've done if she's the honorable person she purports to be. Obviously she is not honorable at all and the above actions against a well-meaning, good kid and his family makes this point more than clear.

Most "desperate and pathetic" action of the week here in the 7th district... you decide...

Rich Dennison