I know this campaign was meant to smear me

To the Editor:

Over the past few months, since my Democratic candidacy for town clerk was announced, there have been veiled threats directed towards me. For the past few weeks particularly, from a Republican-biased, anonymous Facebook source, they alluded to court records from my past. This taunting has most recently been going on for several weeks, including information and people that only I or my family would know, accusing me of everything from identity theft, to infidelity and drug and alcohol use ....

A few months ago, the parties, who will remain nameless here, pulled an arrest record from 1995 and sent them to The Enterprise. I had received a call from [Enterprise Hilltown reporter] Noah Zweifel, asking about them, but since there were no convictions, there was no story, nor relevance, to either myself, or the election. Good thing on Facebook you can be guilty until proven innocent.

Recently, those records were posted online, including my personal information: date of birth, current and previous addresses of myself and my family. Immediately, the comments came pouring in, constantly referencing identity theft. Identity theft? There’s not even a mention in the records of anything related to identity theft.

I was the victim of identity theft nine years ago. Financially, it almost ruined me and I’m still recovering from the damage. Plus, if the individual posting had included the entire report, it would show that there was no conviction. That would be too inconvenient for them.

I was attacked, by name, accused of stealing, and reprimanded for not being “transparent.” The reason I have not come forward earlier is simple: There was nothing to come forward about. The short of it was: I was arrested, charged, placed in a probationary period, and found not guilty of any wrongdoing.

This event also takes me back to a time in my life that I’ve worked very hard to move on from. Revisiting it brings back painful memories. However, in the politically polarized world we live in, it doesn’t seem to matter, so, in the interest of transparency, and in light of questions the public is asking of me, I will do my best to explain what happened 26 years ago.

When I was in the Army, I fell in love with and married one of my platoon mates. By the time we finished our initial term, I was newly pregnant with what I would soon find out to be twins. I was honorably discharged and we moved to his hometown in rural Pennsylvania.

Away from the strict military regimen, my ex-husband quickly dove head-first back into his adolescent drug addiction — a habit that until this time I had been unaware of. In between fixes, when he couldn’t get drugs, he would have manic and violent tantrums, and I was the lucky target of most of them.

The abuse ranged from shouting and a few thrown fists, to one time where he threw me, while about five months pregnant, down a flight of stairs. I was OK, but that trauma resulted in the loss of one of my twins.

His name was to be Danny. I would carry Danny to term, of course, in order to deliver a healthy baby girl, my oldest daughter. A bittersweet moment: a beautiful baby girl on one side of the room, and a tiny, stillborn boy on the other.

While the abuse I obviously knew about, what I didn’t know is, when my ex-husband couldn’t afford drugs, he would steal. I later found out he made a habit of breaking into houses, and sold whatever he could, to buy drugs.

Shortly after the above incident, I came home from work one day to find a new answering machine he installed. Thinking he simply purchased a new one (I had no reason to think otherwise), I recorded our greeting, as anyone would.

Then one day, the police broke down the door.

They caught up with him. Through the course of their search, they found a small array of stolen items, one of which was the answering machine, which just so happened to have my voice on it …. 

So there I was, at age 19, six months pregnant, not knowing what was happening, being escorted to the back of a police car for possession of stolen merchandise. My husband and I were both charged with his wrongdoings. Mine — theft by deception: false impression. You should look it up; the first example Google gives is “when people eat at a restaurant and then sneak out without paying for their meals.” No identity theft here.

During the course of their investigation, both the detective, and the judge, saw that I had nothing to do with the crimes. I was in this mess, just due to association. Now living back on Long Island, with my parents and a baby, I had to come back for meetings and hearings every so often, and that was it.

So that’s it. That’s the big bad story of me — one the Republicans want to pick pieces off to try to slander me because I had horrible taste in romantic partners when I was younger. Is there more drama they could dig up? More domestic complaints they can try to use to twist and paint a nasty picture of me? I’m sure. Actually, I think anyone with a divorce, or even a bad break-up under their belt, has those.

I’ve spent the last 26 years since these events described above growing. I’ve been through some pretty terrible experiences, been dragged through the mud, apparently even now, being targeted as a criminal. Though I still find the strength, and the courage, to be kind. I still give, and help to put good in the world, wherever and whenever I can.

Even the woman who runs this Facebook page — she benefited a great deal from our food pantry. I even shared my personal Culligan delivery with her family when her trailer park’s water went bad.

My neighbor, a steadfast Republican, with a billboard in proud display, I even helped them, delivering food when they declared bankruptcy. Before that, a pot of soup when they had COVID run through their house. Before that, I even helped to file half of their taxes for two or three years. I guess sharing their personal information with me then was OK.

But now, being dug into by the same people I provided aid for, people I had considered friends, isn’t the worst part. Having my records obtained, alluded to, then partially displayed to show a bias, misinterpreted to try to make it sound worse, isn’t the worst part. Rumors, gossip, messages to friends to “warn them about me” isn’t the worst part.

For me, the worst part, the saddest part, is that, even if I had committed these crimes; even if I had actually made these mistakes almost 30 years ago, is that they (my accusers) don’t believe that people are capable of change. They don’t believe that people can grow, can learn, can improve.

I feel this way, that people could pay their debt, learn from their mistakes, and move on. I thought the powers that be of the Republican Party felt this way, especially after they appointed an actual convicted felon to a town board.

Apparently not, as they seem to believe all we are as people are the sum of our worst actions. The funny thing is that none of us are without sin, especially not the ones behind these actions against me. The difference is: I believe people can become better and do better.

In the end, the goal of all this was to turn people off to me, so they wouldn’t vote for me. I know that by having these charges brought against me in the last century, my name rampantly attacked on Facebook, and being wrapped up in this mess, that some people will be swayed.

I don’t completely understand it, but I accept it. That is their right.

However — anyone who has ever made a mistake, or a wrong decision, or been the collateral damage to someone else’s actions, or for anyone who truly believes that people can, and should, grow, improve to be the best version of themselves and do their best to put good into the world, I’m here for you.

I know this campaign was meant to smear me. That’s the unfortunate climate that’s been created recently, but that’s the exact climate that I have been working against, in office or not.

I don’t care what your past is. What are you doing now? Are you helping, or are you hurting? Are you looking to improve, or stay the same? That’s what matters most.

Because my problem, what I’m truly guilty of is that, if anyone, even those who wake up thinking of how they could try to hurt me today, if any of them needed help right now, I would give it.

That’s who I am.

Jean Guarino

Berne

Editor’s note: Jean Guarino is running on the Democratic line for Berne town clerk.

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