Sheriff’s candidate staffer deleted Facebook video of lawmaker endorsing his opponent
The campaign manager for Joey “JoJo” Woodward Jr., a candidate in Beaufort County’s hotly contested sheriff’s race, has publicly apologized for logging into state Rep. Bill Herbkersman’s Facebook page and deleting a video of the lawmaker endorsing incumbent Sheriff P.J. Tanner.
John Acker, Woodward’s campaign manager, called his actions a “major mistake” in an apology posted Monday to Herbkersman’s social media page.
“I made a mistake and overzealous decision in deleting the endorsement video of Rep. Bill Herbkersman to Sheriff P.J. Tanner,” Acker said in the post. “It was wrong. I have apologized to both candidates and I also apologize to the voters of Beaufort county.”
Acker, 21, who is from Bluffton, is currently a student at the Citadel in Charleston. He said he still had administrative privileges to the page from when he worked as Herbkersman’s campaign manager in 2020 and has worked for the lawmaker as a volunteer since he was 15.
“I actually started that page,” Acker said. “Anyone saying I illegally logged into it is lying. I have people calling for my arrest for hacking, which is completely untrue.”
“Sheriff Tanner wanted this apology from me and the fact that he would ... try to tarnish the record of a 21-year-old with a flawless record of service in this county I think goes to show the sad state of politics and that this is how important winning is to the sheriff,” Acker said.
Tanner and Woodward, both Republicans, are running for Beaufort County sheriff in Tuesday’s primary election. Tanner, the incumbent, defeated Woodward, a former captain in the Sheriff’s Office, in 2018.
Herbkersman, R-Bluffton, said he has not contacted law enforcement and has no plans to file a police report.
“At 20 years old, a case of bad judgment is pretty rampant,” he said. “He’s a good kid who did a bad thing. I’m not closing any doors, he’s got a future in public service.”
‘We didn’t know’
When reached by phone Wednesday, Woodward said Acker came to him and his team with what he had done and that his camp does not “condone it and we didn’t know it.”
“You’ve got to look at the guy, he’s 21 years old,” Woodward said. “He owned up to what he did. He called P.J. Tanner and offered an apology; P.J. Tanner made a one-word comment and hung up on the kid.”
In a statement posted to his campaign’s Facebook page, Woodward said Acker offered to resign, but that he and his team decided to keep Acker on in a “limited capacity.”
“Bottom line is, this is only a distraction from Tanner,” Woodward said. “He’ll use it as a distraction instead of the real issues: Why is crime up, why are people leaving? As far as John Acker, guess what? It’s being dealt with.”
Tanner called the situation “corruption.”
“JoJo had to know of it,” Tanner said. “If that’s the way you run this campaign, then that’s the stuff you’ll do at the Sheriff’s Office and Beaufort County will pay the price,” he said.
Early voting for the primary election ends at 5 p.m. Friday.
This story was originally published June 9, 2022 at 11:01 AM.
