Piccirillo Hides Behind Campaign Surrogates to Attack Restaino’s Record
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In a February 5th, 2019, campaign video, Piccirillo had the following message regarding the messaging that his campaign would utilize: “We’ve all seen how opposition is usually done in a political campaign. It’s second hand. It’s cowardly. We’re not going to do that. I’m not going to rely on [] surrogates, paid journalism or anonymous mailers to deliver direct talk. That’s just not me. I’m also not going to spend a whole lot of time talking about my opponents.”
Despite that comment, on Saturday, June 8th, Piccirillo supporter Ken Cosentino released a video where a woman, Kim, recounted her story of being inside of Robert M. Restaino’s courtroom fifteen years ago when he sent everyone to jail. The incident occurred after someone’s cellphone or watch alarm went off and nobody in the courtroom would admit whose it was.
Viewers noticed that Kim’s story, which has not been verified nor did she present any evidence demonstrating the same, contained some inconsistencies. One such example includes Kim stating that she was a “victim” of domestic violence but then later stating that she received her “sentence.”
Victims do not get sentenced in domestic violence court, which is where the event occurred.
Substance of the video aside, it was shared throughout social media by Cosentino and other campaign supporters of Piccirillo. Although the video was not posted on the Piccirillo’s official ‘Seth for NF’ Facebook page, it is undeniable that the campaign, and Piccirillo himself, knew that it was being released.
The fact that Piccirillo decided to not publish the video on his official Facebook page, and rather preferred to have a campaign surrogate do the dirty work himself, goes directly against Piccirillo’s February 5th statement where he said he would not be “second hand,” “cowardly,” or “rely on [] surrogates. . . to deliver direct talk.”
On the other hand, if Piccirillo tries to say that he had no knowledge of the video before it was released, that presents an entirely different issue. It would either show that has little control over his subordinates or that he is a liar.
As a reminder, this newspaper asked Piccirillo only one week ago whether or not he believed his campaign needed to go negative in order to win to which he declined to answer and, instead, attacked this paper’s coverage of him throughout this mayoral election.
It would appear the truthful answer to that question would have been “yes.”
Facts matter.
