In North Carolina, a prominent Democrat running for the State House of Representatives was arrested after getting caught red-handed in the act of theft. The suspect was caught stealing Trump signs off the roadside and hiding them in his car.
WRAL reported that a deputy of the Moore County Sheriff’s Office spotted Lowell Simon, the 68-year-old head of the Democratic Party in Moore County, removing political campaign signs off Seven Lakes Drive in the West End community on Thursday (October 10). The deputy visited Simon’s house and found the signs in his car. Simon admitted to removing and carrying the signs and admitted he shouldn’t have done it:
“My worse angels got the better of me and I removed the signs. I shouldn’t have done that. I didn’t do it in the stealth of night or anything. I did it when it was five o’clock in the afternoon.”
Simon then also tried to rationalize his act, which passes for theft, by stating that he needed to remove those Trump signs because they were improperly placed and were obscuring his own campaign signs that he had placed along the same street.
Law enforcement issued an arrest warrant for Simon on Friday and after his arrest, Simon was charged with two counts of misdemeanor theft. Simon was then released and is required to appear in the Moore County District Court on October 30.
Following the news of his arrest and the criminal charges against him, Simon resigned as chair of the Moore County Democratic Party. The Pilot cited him as:
“I don’t want anything about my personal story to distract from the important work that needs to be done by the Democratic party.”
However, Simon will remain as the Democrat on the ballot for the House of Representatives race against Republican Neal Jackson.
The arrest of Simon for theft comes two months after a prominent Democrat in Alexandria, Minnesota, was arrested along with his wife for stealing more than 200 political signs as well as other kinds of signs. Judd Hoff of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party was charged with aiding and abetting felony theft and receiving stolen property, a crime led by his wife, Wendy Hoff, who was charged with felony theft. SC Times reported (August 12) that the couple had stolen and stored around 240 signs, worth nearly $5,000, in their backyard. They planned to reuse these signs after repainting them for their own political campaign.
Hoff already was a convicted criminal before the theft incident as he was found guilty of felony second-degree assault in August 2021. He was sentenced to 13 months in prison of which he spent nearly eight months in the St. Cloud prison before being put on supervised release. The decision of the DFL Central Committee to endorse Judd Hoff to run for the House 12B election this year despite his felony record sparked criticism of his party. But it appears quite clear that the Democrats don’t care.