A small, local Republican primary for a township’s supervisor position is normally not worth national coverage.
A GOP primary in Smithtown, a town on Long Island, New York, bucked that conventional wisdom with one of the more bizarre lead-ups to a primary imaginable.
On Tuesday, voters in Smithtown voted to keep incumbent supervisor Edward Wehrheim in his position, per News 12 Long Island.
Wehrheim beat challenger John Trotta in the primary, winning 55 percent of the votes to his opponent’s 45 (the incumbent won by about 700 votes).
That victory, however, came in the wake of allegations that a man dating Wehrheim’s adult daughter stalked Trotta and tried to intimidate him in the lead-up to Tuesday’s primary.
According to a New York Post exclusive, 47-year-old Joshua Smith — dating Wehrheim’s daughter, Kellie Ann — was arrested Monday night on charges of stalking and menacing Trotta.
“For three straight nights beginning on June 16, Smith allegedly pulled into Trotta’s driveway late at night, blasting his brights and loudly revving his engine in a string of back-to-back incidents,” the Post reported, citing both Suffolk County police and Trotta himself.
“One night I’m in bed and all of a sudden I hear this loud revving, almost like thunder,” Trotta told The Post. “I go to the window, and I can barely see anything until they drove away.”
That was apparently just the first night of this bizarre experience.
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Initially, Wehrheim’s team vociferously denied any connection to this apparent harassment campaign.
“But after Smith was arrested and charged with stalking Monday night, just hours before polls opened, the supervisor’s camp changed its tone,” the Post reported.
“Right now we’re focusing on getting through the election today,” a campaign representative said Tuesday morning. “After that, the Supervisor and I plan on getting to the bottom of this entire situation. No one wants to get to the truth in this matter more than him.”
Trotta’s not buying it.
“It boggles my mind how [Wehrheim] can sit there and call this an allegation and try to ignore it when the police set up a plate reader and caught him at his house,” Trotta said.
Perhaps due to that close connection, Wehrheim’s campaign felt compelled to distance itself from the supervisor’s daughter’s boyfriend.
“Anyone who has ever worked with, or has met Ed Wehrheim … knows that he is a man who treats everyone with dignity and respect and lives every day to serve his community,” a campaign representative said.
The rep added: “He would never condone or tolerate any sort of behavior that defies basic decency.”
Despite this sordid tale, Wehrheim won his primary Tuesday, boosting his bid to keep a job he’s had for seven years.
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