Text message campaign falsely claims Polk School Board member is under criminal inquiry

Local voters in recent days have received anonymous text messages falsely alleging that Polk County School Board member Lisa Miller is under criminal investigation.

Miller, a Lakeland resident, is running for re-election in District 7. She faces two challengers, Dell Quary and Jill Sessions.

Miller said she began hearing about the text messages on June 28. The texts do not identify the sender, an apparent violation of state election laws.

The Polk County Sheriff’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office for the 10th Judicial Circuit said Wednesday that neither Miller nor her husband is the subject of a criminal investigation. A spokeswoman for the Lakeland Police Department also said she is not aware of any investigation involving them.

Miller said Wednesday that she is the victim of a crime and has asked the State Attorney’s Office to investigate.

“My opposition has attacked me on such a personal level, knowing I have devoted my entire adult life to advocating for children and people with disabilities,” Miller said in a text message.

Miller implied that Sessions is behind the emails. She mentioned that Sessions’ campaign manager, James Dunn, pleaded guilty in 2008 to fraud against the government in Texas.

Sessions denied any connection to the text messages and said she didn’t know who had created and sent them.

“They’re not coming from me,” Sessions said.

Quary also said she had no role in writing or sending the text messages.

“I heard about it by way of the public,” Quary said. “I don’t know anything about its origins.”

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Sessions has been endorsed by the Polk County Republican Party, while the Polk County Democratic Party has endorsed Quary. School board races are nonpartisan, and Miller is registered as a voter with no party affiliation.

Voters registered with both major parties have reported receiving the text messages, though Miller said they seemed more targeted to Republicans.

Miller said she first wondered whether County Citizens Defending Freedom, a conservative group based in Polk County, might have been responsible for the texts. CCDF’s podcast includes a recent interview with Dunn, who is also working for two other School Board candidates endorsed by the Republican Party, Terry Clark and Rick Nolte.

Miller said that CCDF Chairman Steve Maxwell assured her the group has no involvement with the text messages. The group has 501c4 nonprofit status, which allows issue advocacy but prohibits campaigning for any candidate.

In a text message that Miller shared, Maxwell told her that CCDF doesn’t have a texting platform. She said Maxwell offered to help try to determine who sent the text messages.

Maxwell agreed to an interview with The Ledger for Friday but then did not respond to a voicemail left for him.

Miller shared five phone numbers that displayed as the sources of texts received by local residents. Three showed the area code 863, which includes Polk County, and two displayed the area code 786, which covers part of Miami-Dade County and the Florida Keys.

Miller said she provided the State Attorney’s Office with the five numbers.

Attempted calls by The Ledger determined that none of the five is a working number. The sender likely used a technology that displays fake numbers, a tactic regularly used by scammers for phone calls and text messages.

Miller said the malicious text messages have only increased her support.

The School Board elections take place Aug. 23.

Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on Twitter @garywhite13.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Polk County School Board election: Texts to voters attack Lisa Miller