Sheriff Rochelle Bilal warned to ‘cease and desist’ or she may be sued for campaign claims
Attorneys for Michael Untermeyer, a Democrat running for sheriff in Philadelphia, and Alexandra Hunt, a Democrat running for city controller, threatened to sue Bilal over campaign claims.
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A pair of attorneys are threatening to sue Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal if she does not retract claims she made about one of her Democratic primary opponents, Michael Untermeyer, and Alexandra Hunt, a Democratic candidate for city controller.
Bilal, seeking a second term amid controversy for how she has run the Sheriff’s Office, apparently took offense last month after Hunt laid out plans for how she would reform that agency if elected as controller.
Bilal sent a rowdy crowd of supporters to shout down Hunt as she tried to speak in front of the Sheriff’s Office last week. She posted video of that on her campaign Facebook page with a caption declaring, “Ms. Hunt should focus on her own race because it’s clear she’s just one of many pawns our opponent has paid to try to tear Sheriff Bilal down.”
That caption also called Untermeyer, a lawyer and real estate investor who has donated $250,000 to his campaign, a “multi-millionaire self-proclaimed money laundering expert who owns a piece of every major development in Philly.”
That claim was included in a campaign commercial posted on Facebook, which noted that Untermeyer has run for office before and included a false claim that he ran for Philadelphia’s school board in 2019.
Philadelphia does not have an elected school board.
Untermeyer’s lawyer wrote to Bilal on Tuesday, calling her claims “inaccurate and defamatory” and demanding that they be deleted.
Attorney Lee Herman also noted that Untermeyer’s expertise in money laundering came from his time as a prosecutor for the state Attorney General’s Office. Untermeyer may seek to “examine all of your campaign’s relevant records” — statements, emails, faxes, text messages and more — about him and Bilal’s claims, Herman warned.
Hunt’s attorney, Larry Otter, wrote to Bilal last week demanding a retraction for what he called a “libelous” Facebook post about Hunt. Otter accused Bilal of “maliciously and falsely” claiming Untermeyer funded Hunt’s efforts, which he said was not true.
Bilal did not respond to requests for comment.
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