PAC backing Dewhurst running ad blaming Cruz for a young man's suicide
If the race for US Senate between Ted Cruz and David Dewhurst wasn’t the nastiest campaign in Texas history---it is now.
A Political Action Committee backing Dewhurst, Texas Conservatives Fund, is running an ad that accuses Cruz of being responsible for a young man’s suicide.
“Ted Cruz should be absolutely ashamed of himself,” Sandy Fazio of Pennsylvania says in the ad.
The ad ties Cruz to Robert Mericle, a Pennsylvania businessman and developer who pled guilty to corruption charges in connection with the bribing of judges in the Keystone State to sentence young juvenile offenders to a privately run juvenile detention facility that Mericle and his investors owned, in an attempt to pad their profits.
“Ted Cruz says that his client should not have to pay,” says Fazio, who’s son was sentenced to the privately run jail by a judge who had been bought off by Mericle. He later killed himself, Fazio says due to problems related to his stay in the jail. “Cruz says the IRS was the victim and not the kids here. My son took a gun and shot himself in the heart.
“I don’t know how Ted Cruz can sleep at night,” she says.
The Cruz campaign, while expressing its condolences to Fazio, pointed out that Cruz represented Miracle in a tax case related to an insurance company, and had nothing to do with the matter involving the juvenile detention center.
“Texans are rejecting Dewhurst’s shameless and desperate campaign of dishonest character attacks and are instead focused on sending a proven conservative to the US Senate who will reduce the size of government and restore the Constitution,” the Cruz campaign said.
Painting Cruz, who has no political experience and served as Texas Solicitor General, an appointed job, as a lawyer with questionable clients, has been a major attack point for Dewhurst in the closing days of the race.
The runoff is set for next Tuesday. The winner will certainly win election in November to succeed the retiring Kay Bailey Hutchison in the U.S. Senate.
