A 47-year-old Ohio man is facing a misdemeanor charge after he dumped a truckload of manure at Warren County Democratic Headquarters, police said.
James R. Pinell, of Lebanon, was charged with one count of criminal mischief, a third-degree misdemeanor. He is scheduled to appear in Lebanon Municipal Court for arraignment on Thursday.
Asked about his actions, Pinell told the Hamilton Journal-News that he is "fed up with Democratic party" and dumped the manure this weekend as a retaliation "for all the garbage they've been putting out on us."
"I think what they've done, more or less, to the country by having partial-birth abortions and just … the emails and everything, I just feel like half the country, we've just had enough of it," he said. "I just reached … spoke out."
Pinell said this isn't the first time he's carried out such an act. He said "back then," the first time he dumped the manure at party headquarters, was because of "Obamacare" and abortion.
Manure was dumped in 2012 outside the building at 1975 U.S. Route 42., but this time, the building had a security camera that recorded the dumping of the mountain of manure just after midnight on Saturday.
Bethe Goldenfield, chairwoman of the Warren County Democratic Party, called the incident "a minor inconvenience."
"Yes, it's a distraction, maybe and … a disappointment, but the tenor of this campaign cycle, even though it happened before, it's even more heightened," Goldenfield said. "To me it's just a minor blip on the radar and keeps us focused and maybe even work a little bit harder to educate our voters and show that it's important for them to come out and vote.
"We're focused on mining every voter that we can and get them to the polls and get them to vote for Hillary Clinton and the other candidates down the ballot."
Goldenfield said the county's Democratic party is not discouraged and remains "pretty resilient."
"I mean, we are a 30-70 county with a very strong Republican presence and one-party rule, so we're used to a little bit of adversity," she said.
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