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CROTON-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. - State Senate candidate Justin Wagner (D-Croton-on-Hudson) says incumbent Senator Greg Ball (R-Patterson) participated in dirty politics, by impersonating Wagner in an email.
Emails with the subject line "Wacky Wagner: Extremist Candidate for State Senate," appeared as coming from "Justin Wagner," at 11:24 a.m. Monday. The emails contained a link to a video and website, "www.WackyWagner.com," which attack Wagner's candidacy.
Three hours later, Wagner campaign manager Steve Napier sent out screen shots showing the "Wacky Wagner" website was registered by Ball. After Napier's email, website domain registration information was updated so that the registrant was listed as private, and run through Scottsdale, Ariz. company "domainsbyproxy.com."
Napier said the Wagner campaign is filing a complaint with Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore for false impersonation.
A website attacking Assembly member Steve Katz (R-Yorktown), "ww.KrazyyKatz.com" is also registered to Ball.
At the Wacky Wagner website, Wagner is accused of being controlled by campaign contributions from employees of the law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges, which employs about 1,200 lawyers and has 21 offices worldwide. Wagner is not a partner in the law firm, and has no control over the clients the law firm chooses to represent.
Ball's campaign manager, Jim Coleman, said in a statement, "An error was made in the email address 'from' column, the error was corrected and the message is clear." In another statement, Coleman said, "Extremist Wacky Wagner is a wolf in sheeps clothing," and said donations from employees of Weil, Gotshal & Manges represented a conflict of interest.
The Ball campaign announced a news conference outside Ball campaign headquarters in Carmel on Tuesday morning, to address calls "for full disclosure." Calls for comment were not immediately returned by the Ball campaign.
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