Fake site uses ‘Trump playbook’ to raise money for Jerry Dyer, political opponent says
Fresno mayoral candidate Andrew Janz wants the California Attorney General’s Office to investigate a bogus website he says is designed to trick would-be supporters into donating money to his opponent, former police Chief Jerry Dyer.
In a letter to the Attorney General’s Office, Janz campaign officials describe the website, janz4mayor.com, as a “fraud.” The site, which is powered by the free website building platform GoDaddy.com, contains multiple spelling and grammatical errors and falsely attributes a string of ideas to Janz’s political platform.
Dyer’s campaign issued a statement Monday denouncing what they described as a “deceptive campaign website.”
“We strongly condemn this attempt to deceive the voters and provoke negative attacks and hostility between both campaigns. Using false information to deceive voters is nothing short of wrong and California laws on deceptive campaign practices are clear,” Dyer’s campaign said in part. “That is why we are supportive of a complete investigation to determine who is behind this type of negative campaigning.”
The site falsely claims Janz wants to “remove all nonviolent crimes as being prosecutable (sic),” fund needle exchanges beginning in elementary school to help solve drug addiction and use High Speed Rail’s connection to the Bay Area and Los Angeles as a way to attract tech business to Fresno.
The site also lists a phone number and mailing address for Janz’s campaign that actually belongs to the Fresno Needle Exchange, a program whose executive director has been critical of Dyer.
While it’s unclear whether the page was intended to be some type of parody account, Janz’s campaign suggested it may constitute fraud because a message at the bottom of the page reads “Your donations will go to a quality candidate that will care for you!” but links to a donation page for Dyer’s campaign.
Shortly after news broke about the site Monday, the link from the website to Dyer’s donation page was changed to a YouTube video featuring the song “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley.
Janz’s campaign asked state prosecutors to investigate those who “perpetrated this fraud on the voters of the city of Fresno.” The campaign also said it will file a similar complaint with the FPPC.
“To be clear: Mr. Janz does not support removing firearms from the police, decriminalizing nonviolent crimes, or county-funded needle exchanges, nor does he support providing drug paraphernalia to minors,” the letter to Attorney General Xavier Becerra said.
The attorney for Janz’s campaign said the site was created on or about Oct. 25.
Janz’s campaign referenced state law that targets cyber fraud, Assembly Bill 1104, which was created to protect elections in response to Russian interference in American elections in 2016. The law makes it illegal to mislead people accessing political websites.
“It’s disappointing to learn that there are still people out there who are using the Trump playbook to mislead voters in order to win an election,” the campaign said in a news release. “We’re calling on Jerry Dyer to condemn the fake website and those behind it.”
The fake website also mischaracterized the needle exchange, said Dallas Blanchard, executive director of Fresno Needle Exchange. The program gives clean needles to drug users to help prevent the spread of HIV, hepatitis and other intravenous diseases, as well as cut down on the number of used needles being unsafely discarded on city streets.
“It’s making out the needle exchange to be a liberal or leftist idea when it’s a public health issue,” Blanchard said. “For someone to use a public health issue in this manner is very disingenuous.”
Blanchard added that the program is funded through the state health department and private foundation grants, not money from local government.
While Blanchard personally protested Dyer’s mayoral announcement, neither he nor the needle exchange is affiliated with the Janz campaign.
This story was originally published October 28, 2019 at 4:48 PM.