The man who said in a since-deleted Facebook video that a Waynesboro School Board member had been let go from her job as the head of a city homeless shelter due to embezzlement has now retracted the accusation – and is telling us and the world that he was encouraged to go public with the false claim by the board member’s political rival and the head of a local nonprofit.
That’s where our update to the story that we posted last night on this starts.
Obviously, a lot to unpack.
Let me try to frame the story here at the outset by saying at the top: we reached out to everybody involved:
- Debra Freeman, whose name was dragged into the mud by the false accusation.
- Freeman’s opponent for re-election, Kelvin Washington, a local pastor.
- Chanda McGuffin-Tucker, who heads up a nonprofit, RISE, which describes itself on its Facebook page as “a vehicle for giving voice to the voiceless, strength to the weak and support for the lost within the Black Community.”
- Dewan Bellamy, the local activist who made the accusation, since retracted.
Freeman, the victim here, seems to have chosen the path of letting the story tell itself; she didn’t respond to my request for comment.
Washington, for his part, is trying to cast himself as being something of a victim here as well.
The pastor wrote in a statement to AFP today:
I believe there is no room for negative politics in a school board race. Although I did not authorize any negative attacks on my opponent, I take full responsibility for my supporters’ conduct, because I should have emphasized that we do not participate in negative attacks.
While I’ve mentioned this in the past, I now demand my supporters show Ms. Freeman the utmost respect. The best way to represent me is to represent my values. I’m the only voice who communicates the values of this campaign. I will continue to focus on fighting for our students.
Background
This mess got into the public domain in the wake of Freeman’s decision to back out of appearing at a candidates forum that was to be hosted this week by RISE – the reason, per Freeman, in a Facebook post, being the public support of the head of RISE, McGuffin-Tucker, for Washington.
Of note here: McGuffin-Tucker conceded in a reply to Freeman’s post that she does get “personally involved” in local elections, then accused Freeman of wanting to “grandstand” on Facebook, and denigrated her supporters as “mignons” – presumably meaning “minions.”
“You don’t want to debate. Just say that!” McGuffin-Tucker commented.
Bellamy jumped into the fray on social media, making the claim in the now-deleted video – we saved a copy, because that’s what we do – that Freeman, as director of the Waynesboro Area Refuge Ministry, “embezzled money that was used for homeless people,” and said Freeman “should absolutely not be working for the Boys and Girls Club,” where Freeman is currently the executive director.
“The fact that you did this and still decided to run again for school board is absolutely disgusting. I am suggesting that you drop out this race and that you no longer, no longer point your finger at anybody because y’all are a bunch of crooks,” Bellamy said in the video.
***
The meat of the story of how we got from, a candidate backs out of a debate because she has questions about it being fair, to, said candidate being falsely accused of embezzlement, was made clear to me by the record of the interactions between McGuffin-Tucker and Bellamy, the latter of whom provided us with receipts of their digital conversations.
Bellamy first went public with the messages shared between himself and McGuffin-Tucker in another Facebook video posted on Friday morning, which he indicated to me was triggered by the comment that Washington sent to us as a response to our report on the embezzlement accusations published on Thursday night.
First, to that comment, from Washington:
“I’m disappointed to see Mr. Bellamy’s libelous comments and actions toward Ms. Debra Freeman,” Washington wrote in the response to our first story, which we added as an update.
More background here: we had reached out to Washington as we were gathering information for that first report, which was ultimately published at 10:06 p.m. Thursday, but he told us that he wasn’t able to return a message because he was traveling to an out-of-town conference; his response to us was timestamped 1:41 a.m. Friday.
Now, more from the overnight message from Washington:
His opinions and views do not represent my personal views of Ms. Freeman, who I know to be an upright and respectable community leader. Mr. Bellamy’s video falsely depicts my opponent, and his actions do not align with the principles and positions of this campaign.
Response
The update to the first story was timestamped 9:37 a.m. Friday morning; at 10:15 a.m., Bellamy reached out to me by email to tell me that he had “proof and screenshots that Chanda McGuffin and KJ Washington are the ones that fed me the information about Debra. Apparently, KJ has dirt on her and every other board member. If you would like to know the story, please reach out to me.”
Bellamy then asked in a follow-up email to wait to report on that part of the story until he was able to post a video to his Facebook page telling his side of the story.
I want the whole story to be known. Mr. Washington and Miss McGuffin played me giving me false information because they knew I was upset and angry about people on Miss Freeman’s post calling me a rapist and a woman beater, and instead of doing it on their own, they fed me the information and made me look like the town dummy, and I’m not having it.
So, we waited.
This is what Bellamy had to say in the video that he posted, as promised, to his page on Friday morning:
It’s sad that I got to do this, but one thing I don’t play with is treachery and cowardice, and that’s exactly what went on this morning.
First of all, Mr. Washington is full of … He knew exactly what I said, because he is one of the people that fed me the information, along with Miss Chanda McGuffin. As you can see, she says when they did the story on her being homeless, she was homeless because she lost her job at the WARM for embezzlement. And Mr. Washington can act like he didn’t know anything about this. All of that, that is a lie. As you can see, Miss McGuffin says KJ has so much dirt on her and other board members. I was fed this information to look like a crash out. They wanted me to take the brunt of it because they are too cowardous to stand up on their own word.
One thing I don’t play, I don’t play treachery, and two things for certain, I don’t play sides. I’m not a Republican. I’m not a Democrat. I don’t take the side of a Black person just because you got a Black face. None of that gets kicked over here. And as you can see, I said I was going to do it, so KJ didn’t look bad to smear his campaign. As you can see, Miss McGuffin says, Hold on, he’s texting me. So, she’s referencing Mr. Washington, so he knows exactly what’s going on while it’s going on. Also, Miss McGuffin is the one that told me that Miss Freeman was giving the money to Orion.
They fed me a load of BS to make themselves look good, while making me look bad. But you will not smear my name, and you will not put dirt on my name when you are the ones that gave me the information. You are crooked, just like Debra. I am done with all of you Negroes in Waynesboro. You want to talk about dirty politics? It just got real nasty. Do better, because you won’t slander my name, and Mr. Washington, you won’t win nothing. Peace.
As Bellamy spoke in the video, he pointed to images of messages between himself and McGuffin-Tucker that he later provided to us.
“When they did the story on her being homeless. She was homeless cuz she lost her job at warm for embezzlement.”
Bellamy’s response: “What ??? Are you serious ?? And she got the nerve to run for office??”
McGuffin-Tucker’s next line: “Kj has soooooo much dirt on her and other members of the board.”
McGuffin-Tucker, here, messages back: “Hold on he’s texting me.”
Bellamy replies, “Okay!”
Then McGuffin-Tucker: “Go screenshot those comments. If she deletes them we can go to the board of electorates.”
What, exactly, is going on there?
As I wrote above, we reached out to everybody involved in the story.
This was the first response that I got back from McGuffin-Tucker, explaining her side of things:
When all this occurred years ago, I saw the video by Ms. Freeman’s then-husband where he made these allegations. Ms. Freeman and I discussed the video, and she said he was having a mental break and accusing her of all the stuff in the video because she wanted a divorce. No one disputed any of that video and what was said during the time that it occurred until yesterday. Dr. Washington did not tell me to tell Dewan to post anything on social media.
This left me with questions. Because on the one hand, McGuffin-Tucker is trying to say that “(n)o one disputed” the accusations made in a years-old video that she attributed to Freeman’s ex-husband that she says made the original accusation about embezzlement, but also, McGuffin-Tucker tells us that she discussed the video with Freeman, who, from her description, very much disputed the allegation.
I wrote back to try to get clarification.
The response:
I am referring to WARM didn’t make a statement against his claims.
Really?
I wrote McGuffin-Tucker back, because, seriously, you can’t expect people to buy that line.
My email to her:
So, you encouraged Dewan to use information that Debra told you wasn’t true, just because WARM didn’t see a video in which her ex-husband made claims about her back when they were going through a divorce?
I’m asking this to try to be fair to you here.
It seems to me that you’ve conceded that Debra told you that claim wasn’t true, and yet you encouraged Dewan to use that against her even though you knew it wasn’t true.
McGuffin-Tucker’s response to that question:
The gentleman called Dewan a woman beater and rapist. He’s responding to those false claims. I wasn’t telling Dewan to go post anything toward him or Debra.
McGuffin-Tucker seems here to be trying to justify Bellamy posting a video with a false story about Debra Freeman having lost her job due to embezzlement by pointing to a guy in a Facebook thread calling Bellamy names.
I addressed this to her in a final question:
He didn’t know the story about her supposedly being let go for embezzlement, according to the exchange of messages between the two of you.
You also were the source for what he said about somebody named Orion that “she was giving the money to and sleeping with.”
He didn’t know any of that until you told him.
He also messaged you to offer to “air the dirty laundry” so nothing would come back on Dr. Washington.
“He should let an outside source like someone like me.”
Your response: “Hold on he’s texting me.”
And then: “Go screenshot those comments. If she deletes them we can go to the board of electorates.”
What am I missing here? Dewan offered to be the guy to tell a story about Debra being let go from her job at WARM because of embezzlement that he didn’t know about until you told him, your response was to tell Dewan that KJ was texting you, and the very next thing you tell Dewan is to screenshot comments.
Dewan told you that he was going to go public with what you told him.
Now you’re trying to act like you had nothing to do with it.
Something isn’t adding up here.
I want to be fair to everybody here, again – so, please feel free to enlighten me so that I can know what I need to know.
Her response:
I told him to screenshot comments because comments had been deleted on a campaign page. This should not be happening. If Debra wanted a controlled convo, she could have responded to the invite email or texting me. Dewan made comments based on his and my conversation. Not from KJ. That is my point. I didn’t say we didn’t have a conversation.
Who gets left holding the bag?
Short answer: the woman.
Isn’t that always the case?
I spoke with Kelvin Washington today by phone for more than half an hour. At his request, the conversation was off the record.
I don’t think I’m betraying that agreement by telling you that he repeatedly denied having anything to do with telling Dewan Bellamy to go public with the false accusation that Debra Freeman left her job at WARM under the cloud of an embezzlement investigation.
But then, from the perspective of Dewan Bellamy, he wasn’t even aware of the discredited allegation against Freeman until the back-and-forth with Chanda McGuffin-Tucker.
Bellamy’s position on all of this is: the story was planted with him, and he did what he thought he was being asked to do.
McGuffin-Tucker, meanwhile, is left taking the heat on that part of things, and seems to be doing so quite willingly.
Note what she had to say above:
- “Dr. Washington did not tell me to tell Dewan to post anything on social media.”
- “Dewan made comments based on his and my conversation. Not from KJ. That is my point.”
One last comment from Washington makes clear who we’re supposed to think is the bad guy in this story:
After a conversation, it has been decided that Mrs. McGuffin-Tucker will not have any affiliation with this campaign.
So, there you have it.
Editorial comment: I don’t see any winners in this story.
Certainly not Debra Freeman, who had her name dragged through the mud for no good reason.
You know how people are.
Somebody 10 years from now is going to say, Didn’t she get accused of embezzlement from the homeless, or something?
Not Kelvin Washington, who, at best, is being done in here by supporters running amok in his name.
Not Chanda McGuffin-Tucker, who as the head of a nonprofit is reliant on support from the community to fund what she’s trying to do, and all of this getting out into public isn’t going to help with that going forward.
And not Dewan Bellamy, who isn’t happy that he let himself get duped into going public with comments that he now knows not to be true.
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Chris Graham
