Tea Party candidate denies accosting GOP opponent’s staffer

A Tea Party-backed candidate hoping to oust veteran Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) this fall is being accused of accosting a Shuster staffer who was working a campaign booth last weekend.

Meghan Boocks, 22, said Art Halvorson came up to the Shuster campaign booth at the Fayette County Fair late in the afternoon on Saturday and grabbed her “tightly by the wrist” while pressing Boocks about her involvement with Shuster’s campaign, according to a report that was later filed with the security firm in charge of the event.

Halvorson vehemently denies the alleged incident, which was first reported by the Uniontown Herald Standard almost a week after the alleged event took place. No police report has been filed.

“This is a charge of assault and battery and it is false,” Halvorson told the Herald Standard. “I did approach the booth to talk to them, but I never shook either one’s hand. I never touched that young woman. These are absolutely false statements and I vehemently deny them.”

Halvorson cast the new allegations as an effort by the Shuster campaign to smear him. He also pointed to a discredited claim in the previous election cycle that Halvorson received taxpayer subsidies for a farm he rents in Iowa.

“This is beyond imagination,” Halvorson said. “It is striking they would come up with this.”

Halvorson, a real estate investor and retired Coast Guard captain, narrowly lost to Shuster in the April primary but earned enough Democratic write-in votes to secure the Democratic nomination in the general election this fall.

“Art Halvorson inappropriately and aggressively grabbing a young woman, who works on my campaign, is disgraceful,” Shuster said in a statement. “It is disturbing that he believed it was okay to intimidate her and make her feel uncomfortable. He should leave my staff alone.”

The allegations underscore what is likely to be a bitter race between the rivals, who have already faced off twice before. Shuster trounced Halvorson in the 2014 primary, 53 percent to 34 percent, but beat him by just 1,009 votes in their rematch in this year’s primary.

Boocks claims she felt intimidated when Halvorson approached the booth that she and her fiancé were manning and asked for the name of Shuster’s campaign manager.

“Then, he said I could personally tell my boss that he would destroy him in the election and take his job,” Boocks said.

Halvorson told the Herald Standard he was only trying to figure out who Shuster’s campaign manager was, since he had only seen statements put out by his communications director.