ORLANDO, Fla.,None — John Tegg, the candidate challenging Sheriff Jerry Demings, said someone swiped the domain name for his old campaign website.
For about the last two months, anyone who went to the web site johnteggforsheriff.com was redirected to the congressional campaign website of Val Demings, the wife of Tegg's chief rival in the race for Orange County Sheriff.
"We got several phone calls from several people who that said, ‘are you aware?" said John Tegg, Orange County Sheriff candidate.
Eyewitness News searched records online and found out the website was registered to an account with the name, Domains by Proxy, LLC. However, that is as much information that can be obtained without a subpoena.
Tegg points to Jerry Demings.
"So you’re convinced that it has to do with his campaign?” asked Eyewitness News reporter Drew Petrimoulx.
“Well, absolutely! Who does it benefit?" asked Tegg.
WFTV searched expenditures for both Demings’ campaigns and found nothing that appeared to match up.
In an email statement, Val Demings’ campaign manager Brad Neidhardt said, "I can say with absolute certainty that Val Demings, her family and her campaign have nothing to do with this."
"Maybe you guys set this up just to get some publicity?” Petrimoulx asked Tegg.
“No, I can assure you we didn’t," said Tegg.
A search of Tegg's expenditures also provided no answers.
Last Monday, in an email obtained by Eyewitness News, the president of the union that represents Orange County sheriff’s deputies wrote to the Val Demings campaign and accused them of hijacking the website.
Val Demings’ spokesman responded, and said if they knew who was doing it they would ask them to stop.
By Sunday, the domain switch had been changed.
The campaign manager for Jerry Demings also denied any involvement in the domain switch.
Eyewitness News was scheduled to interview Demings’ campaign manager on Monday afternoon, but she abruptly canceled and did no return our phone calls or text messages.