FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 19, 2010
CONTACT: JAMES SLEPIAN
James@Renacciforcongress.com
330 618 2412
JIM RENACCI BLASTS BOCCIERI AND UNION BOSSES FOR FALSE ADS, FILES DEFAMATION LAWSUIT AGAINST AFSCME
Canton, OH—Today, Jim Renacci filed a defamation lawsuit against the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees union, in response to the patently false and purely fictional allegations contained in the advertising campaign that AFSCME has initiated on behalf of Congressman John Boccieri. After AFSCME’s gross distortion of Jim Renacci’s views on tax policy were debunked last week, union bosses have now launched a second round of attacks, falsely accusing Jim Renacci and his wife of criminal conduct. As was reported last week by Politico, union bosses at AFSCME are running the ad campaign on behalf of John Boccieri as a “thank-you to the Democrat for supporting top party agenda items” including Cap & Trade, ObamaCare and the Obama-Pelosi stimulus plan.
“In a desperate attempt to hide from his record of support for every component of Nancy Pelosi’s agenda in Washington—including Cap and Trade and rampant fiscal recklessness that has crippled our economy and wiped out our jobs, John Boccieri and his allies are engaged in a scorched earth assault on me, my family and the truth. I may have grown up poor and powerless but I’ve been a fighter all my life, and if John Boccieri and his Washington special interest friends think I will sit idly by as they defame me and my family to distract from the damage Mr. Boccieri’s done to our community, they have misjudged me as badly as they have mismanaged our country,” Jim Renacci said today.
After running their initial false ad against Jim Renacci to distract voters from the $1.4 trillion in tax increases that John Boccieri has supported in the last 12 months alone, AFSCME followed up with an even more egregious perversion of reality by alleging that Jim Renacci and his wife “cheated” on their taxes and “avoided jail time” by paying back taxes to the state. As was previously reported here, Jim Renacci and his wife never hid income on their joint tax return and have never been subject to any kind of criminal charge or criminal investigation of any kind. Rather, when the Ohio Tax Commissioner attempted to unilaterally and retroactively impose state income taxes on small business trust accounts, which had only been subject to federal income taxes, Jim joined with over 1,000 other Ohioans as petitioners who appealed the Commissioner’s retroactive tax assessment. The matter resulted in two split decisions by the Ohio Supreme Court, which ultimately clarified the law and any tax liability that was owed.
“John Boccieri and his Washington allies have accused me of everything short of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and at this rate I’m sure that’s probably next. It’s sad that our Congressman is so frightened to face the voters and answer for his own record in Washington, that he’s taken to hiding behind his friends as they spread his lies about my record and my family. Our district, our state and our country deserve much better than that,” Jim Renacci added.
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A copy of the complaint filed today can be found here.