The local political activist whose since-deleted Facebook video led to the unraveling of a Waynesboro School Board campaign was back with another video that he posted on Saturday in which he absolved Kelvin Washington, who dropped out of the Ward C race on Saturday amid the controversy, while, again, seeming to try to justify the legally dubious comments about Washington’s opponent, Debra Freeman.
I need to note here at the top that I’m following up with a story on the video posted Saturday morning because I was asked to by Washington by email today.
The issue had seemed to be resolved.
I say that because, don’t blame me here for trying to get clicks on the corpse of a defunct campaign.
Washington’s request to me:
Can you acknowledge Mr. Bellamy’s statement of walking back everything he said about my involvement? I think it’s only fair since he’s put out a video and confirms it was not my involvement.
Agreed; that’s definitely fair.
But, be careful what you ask for.
ICYMI
- Waynesboro School Board race off the rails with legally dubious video accusation
- Digging into the dirt on that dirty Waynesboro School Board politics story
- Waynesboro: Kelvin Washington drops out of Ward C School Board race
Bellamy, who, if you’ve been following our reporting on this from the jump, you know, the guy speaks straight from the heart, unedited, did the walkback in his own style.
Here’s how he started:
I appreciate Mr. Washington for coming on this morning and making his statement and apologizing. I appreciate it. At the end of the day, I want everybody to look at it like this: me and him both was manipulated by someone. We both was led to believe one thing and told something else. Someone manipulated us and fed us information and had us playing sides when neither one of us actually really knew what was going on.
What Bellamy was referencing here: our second report in the series on this issue detailed that Chanda McGuffin-Tucker, the director of a local nonprofit, RISE, had fed him the story about Freeman supposedly having been let go from her job as the head of a local homeless shelter due to an embezzlement allegation, which Brian Edwards, the chair of the board of directors of the shelter, Waynesboro Area Refuge Ministry, emphatically debunked after Bellamy had gone public with that claim.
Bellamy had originally told us he had been under the impression that Washington was the source of the allegation.
What he said on Saturday:
I can say that after speaking to Mr. Washington this morning that he didn’t know what had transpired. He did not know that I was being fed this information. It was made to look like he knew when they were having a whole separate conversation. Miss McGuffin knows exactly what she did. She manipulated and she connived, and I don’t really understand the goal of this, other than to create Black discourse and separation. It literally doesn’t make any sense.
To be clear here, McGuffin-Tucker has already told us on the record that “Dr. Washington did not tell me to tell Dewan to post anything on social media” and, separately, that Bellamy “made comments based on his and my conversation. Not from KJ. That is my point.”
Here’s where things get murky with Bellamy’s absolution of Washington: he used the opportunity to go on the attack against Freeman.
I’ve noticed that Mr. Washington’s supporters have been targeted and said to have said things and been held to be accountable for what they’ve done, but yes, yet Miss Freeman’s supporters have not. I’m going to say this: this all started because Miss Freeman’s supporters started making false accusations, calling me a rapist and a woman beater. When all of this is false, I’ve never been charged with any of that. So, to put that on my name is absolutely ridiculous. So, Miss Freeman needs to be held accountable for her supporters’ actions as well.
The word “supporters” is overstating it, implying that there were more than one, at least that we can verify.
Bellamy was referencing there comments made on a post on Freeman’s School Board campaign Facebook page that have since been deleted.
I reached out to Bellamy this morning to ask if he had screenshots of the posts, and he sent me two, both attributed to an Orion Harden, who McGuffin-Tucker had alleged in a digital conversation had been in a relationship with Freeman at the time of her departure from WARM.
This is one part of my job that sucks, but, gotta do it.
Harden made accusations; Bellamy says they’re not true.
Gotta verify.
So, I ran Dewan Bellamy’s name through the Virginia court system online database, and what it spit back out to me was:
- 2015: pleaded guilty in a felony robbery case, sentenced to 10 years, seven years suspended, with five years probation
- 2025: charged in a misdemeanor destruction of property case; charge was dismissed
- 2025: found guilty in a misdemeanor assault and battery case; given a 90-day suspended sentence
- 2026: pleaded guilty in a felony perjury case; current status: deferred disposition to Aug. 14, 2028
- 2026: found guilty in a misdemeanor assault and battery case; given a 180-day sentence, with 176 days suspended
Orion Harden, the guy on the other side of the back-and-forth with Bellamy, served more than 18 years in prison on drug trafficking and firearms convictions, and is now a public speaker, personal trainer and mentor.
None of us are angels.
Where Harden was wrong in his Facebook comment: calling Bellamy a “rapist.”
But the court records tell us that Bellamy has two recent convictions in assault and battery cases.
And that record haven’t been made clear, none of that would justify Bellamy attacking Freeman with a false accusation with a false allegation.
Bellamy did acknowledge this in the video that he posted on Saturday.
Not saying that it’s right what I did, or anything that transpired after that, but at the same time, everyone needs to be account held accountable for their actions, including myself. I was wrong for allowing someone to manipulate and use me when I know that I’m way sharper than that, and that’s my fault. I take accountability for that the full brunt. If a lawsuit comes and it comes, whatever, that’s being a man. I’m standing on my own. I made the statement at the end of the day, no matter who gave it to me. So I am wrong in this too. But at the same time, everyone needs to be held accountable.”
This is where I remind you: Dewan Bellamy didn’t ask me to write this story.
I was done with the matter.
Bellamy and I traded emails after his video was posted online; he didn’t mention it to me.
Kelvin Washington asked me to write about the video, and because of that, now we’ve had to report on his campaign getting a $1,000 donation from a PAC run by a MAGA Republican, and had to address the criminal history that Dewan Bellamy would surely not like to have easily Google searchable in perpetuity.
I’m not sure this story did what Dr. Washington wanted it to do, is what I’m getting at here.
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Chris Graham
