Democrat Joshua Jered Rodriguez was a wanted man, just not by the voters.
He was running from police and towards a congressional seat in Colorado’s newly formed 8th District.
And he might have fit right in with all those other shady Democrats running Washington, D.C., if it weren’t for those pesky Jefferson County sheriff deputies and their warrant for Rodriguez’s arrest this week.
He’s been ducking the law since May when he failed to show up for his court date to face multiple felony charges.
From the Colorado Sun:
Rodriguez was charged with nine counts of identity theft, one count of forgery and one count of attempted cybercrime in October 2020 and two counts of attempting to influence a public servant in December 2020 after he was accused of trying to set up multiple fraudulent GoFundMe pages in the name of Julia Vitanyi, the moderator of the popular Arvada Neighbors Facebook group.
The Beltway boys would have loved this dude.
The charges stem from Rodriguez’s run for mayor, when he tried to raise money online in a Facebook community group, but was booted for breaking the rules.
Rodriquez then filed a slander lawsuit against the group moderator, Julia Vitanyi, and allegedly set up a fundraising account under her name to ostensibly collect her money for himself.
According to the Arvada Press, he was arrested when he went to the police to file charges against Vitanyi, claiming the social media group was fraudulently using the name of his own non-profit group.
Vitanyi said that she wasn’t sure what Rodriguez’s goal with all of this was and expressed worry for wherever he ends up.
“That’s the most concerning part about him,” said Vitanyi, “I don’t know what his end game is and he just seems very unpredictable with what he does. I’m concerned for whatever community he moves to next.”
It appears the local authorities were alerted by the Arvada Press earlier this week after Rodriquez filed to run and began fundraising.
No one else in the Colorado media seemed to notice the Democrat was wanted by police, until after he was arrested.