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Democrat Assembly candidate John Birkner Accused of Posting Signs at Auth Schepisi Campaign Headquarters

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

MONTVALE NJ, Things turned a little ugly when a video filmed by Assembly candidate John Birkner was posted online Monday.  In the video, about 34 seconds long, shows Birkner in conflict with accuses a man in a goatee, of removing Democratic candidates’ signs.  The man, according to Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi, is a campaign volunteer who was working with two kids, scared off by Birkner and was removing the signs from private property being leased to the Schepisi and Auth campaigns when Birkner appeared.  Birkner demanded to film the trunk of the man’s Hyundai, handling some of the signs within, which prompted the driver to shut the trunk.

Both parties accused the other of removing signs.

The Democrats released a statement charging incumbents Holly Schepisi and Robert Auth with “engaging in dishonest and juvenile campaign tactics as this competitive race enters its final days.”  John Birkner described the Republicans as “running a deceitful campaign” and accusing them of calling the Democrats “knuckle-dragging cro-magnons”.  Birkner said in the statement that “just this weekend, we caught a crew of their volunteers red-handed on camera stealing our lawn signs.”

Falotico added, “We strive every day to run the best, cleanest, most honest campaign we can.  It has been incredibly disappointing to see our opponents resort to name-calling, to lying, and now to actual theft.”

“John Birkner improperly placed signs on our Campaign Headquarters’ private property,” the Schepisi and Auth campaigns responded in a statement.  “He then trespassed and verbally assaulted several of our campaign volunteers, including two who were minors. Unlike our opponents, we understand the law and the difference between public and private property. John Birkner has a well-documented history of verbally assaulting others in the community, including the former Police Chief’s wife in Westwood.”

Assemblywoman Schepisi told Insider NJ that it was “bizarre” and John Birkner “was getting into one of our kid’s faces and scaring two kids under the age of 18.”

“Our new campaign headquarters is private corporate property,” she said.  “Our kids were putting up our signs on our property and saw there were some signs from our opponents.  All of the sudden, it was like he was stalking the premises and he jumps out of a car with his camera and chases the kids up to our private driveway, goes into the kid’s trunk.  Two of the kids were underage and got very upset.  He was just ranting and raving at them.”

Schepisi said she was not present at the time of the incident, but saw the video shortly after it appeared online.  “Everything is about context and he sent that video around to a whole bunch of people trying to get them to bite on it.  Nobody would bite on it because they asked, where was this taken?  I was with the owner of the property when the article popped up and I showed it to him, he said ‘that’s my property, I didn’t give him permission to put signs on my property’.  We’re in the stupid, silly season now.”

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