Kester has to distance himself from sheriff’s race shenanigans

Neil Kester, the Republican nominee for Augusta County sheriff, says he had nothing to do with pushing allegations against the incumbent sheriff, Donald Smith.

OK.

He sure did take the ball and run with it without any problem at a press conference today at the Augusta County Government Center.

On the one hand, Kester told reporters that he had called the press conference “for the purpose of eliminating this distraction” from his campaign, so that he can instead focus his campaign on “ways to improve Augusta County Sheriff’s Office.”

Which, fine.

But then he went into great detail into the allegations against Smith, which first surfaced in an anonymous online video last month that linked the sheriff to a Harrisonburg man named Felix Chujoy, who was sentenced in 2018 for his role in a labor trafficking scheme involving a Harrisonburg eatery.

According to continued great reporting by the News Leader, advertisements in the Leader and placed on digital billboards locally have been tracked back to a PAC calling itself Stop Trafficking Augusta, whose president, according to a statement of organization is Evan Ajin, the vice president of operations with Nexus Service.

The Augusta County-based Nexus joined with the Waynesboro social justice group RISE and the New Black Panthers of Waynesboro to lead a demonstration at the Augusta County Courthouse earlier this month aimed at Smith.

Nexus seems to have had a long-running beef with various county leaders dating back a few years now.

Another PAC, Keep Augusta Great, also appears to be associated with the ads. That PAC tracked back to a Scott Cline who is a former local Republican Party leader.

Kester acknowledged today that Cline had been a volunteer with his campaign, but that Cline is no longer involved with his campaign.

Interesting bedfellows there, by the way: a Republican operative, a left-leaning social justice group, the Black Panthers, Nexus.

I want to take Kester at his word that he didn’t raise the issue with Smith, but I’d be more inclined to go with him on that if he wouldn’t go out of his way to call press conferences to make that claim and then use his time in front of cameras to go into detail into the mud that is being slung.

He may very well have good ideas on how to improve the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office.

It just feels to me that there’s some work to do on his part to distance his effort from the shenanigans surrounding the sheriff’s race.

Column by Chris Graham