In today's Daily Digest, we told you about how Republican candidate David M. Rivera once ran a truck off the road because it was carrying flyers printed for his opponent in a state legislative race, in the hopes of preventing it from reaching the post office on time. Rivera's campaign is, of course, twisting itself into a pretzel-shaped object in an attempt to deny the story.
As he seeks to jump from the Legislature to Congress, Republican state Rep. David Rivera is fighting off a nasty attack from his GOP rivals -- an allegation that he was accused of domestic violence in the 1990s.
One of Rivera's opponents in the Republican primary, Paul Crespo, has raised the issue on a website. Another opponent, Marili Cancio, repeated the allegations in a television interview earlier this month.
Rivera denies he was ever accused of domestic violence -- a charge first raised in 2002, during his first political campaign. In a written statement to The Miami Herald, Rivera slammed his opponents for trying to ``libel, slander and defame my character.''
The allegation arises from a 1994 petition for a domestic-violence restraining order filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court against one David M. Rivera. The court file has been destroyed -- by law, family court files are not retained after five years -- along with any details or additional identifying information. Only a computer record of the docket is available today.
The restraining order was dropped after a month, and no criminal charges were filed, records show. But inconsistencies in Rivera's responses to the claim in years past and today have helped make it a campaign issue heading into the Aug. 24 Republican primary, a Miami Herald/WFOR-CBS 4 review has found.
Really, just read the whole thing. Get a load of Rivera's dismissals of anyone who contradicts his story as perpetrators of an "obvious hoax".
