Alaska Sen. Mark Begich is taking down a controversial ad that attacks his Republican opponent, after the Democrat received a scathing letter from the lawyer of the family of an Alaska couple murdered last year.
Mr. Begich’s campaign released a TV ad last week that pointed blame at Republican candidate Dan Sullivan, Alaska’s former attorney general, for the early release of a sex offender who has been charged in the murder of an elderly couple and the sexual assault of a child, the Washington Examiner reported.
Mr. Sullivan demanded the ad be taken down, but it was the response of the family that ultimately led to the ad being pulled, the Examiner said.
“You are tearing this family apart to the point that your ad was so shocking to them they now want to permanently leave the state as quickly as possible,” Bryon Collins, the attorney for the victims and their family, wrote Monday in a letter to Mr. Begich, obtained by The Daily Caller.
Mr. Collins goes on to accuse the Begich campaign of crossing “the boundaries of decency, honor, and compassion.”
“You[r] campaign is playing pure politics at the expense of my clients, and frankly has done only what is in the best interests of ’Mark Begich’ rather than protecting the victims of the most serious crime in Alaska history,” he wrote.
A spokesman for Begich’s campaign said the team is modifying the ad “to remove any potential reference to the pending criminal case,” CNN reported.
On Monday, his campaign reportedly asked television stations to replace the current ad with an older campaign ad until the ad at issue had been revised.
• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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