PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - Providence mayoral candidate Jorge Elorza is blaming a former adviser for copying another politician’s wording and putting it in a letter to voters explaining a shoplifting arrest from when he was 18.
City Council President Michael Solomon, Elorza’s opponent in the Sept. 9 Democratic primary, accused Elorza of plagiarism, while Elorza’s campaign said he would have immediately corrected the problem had he known about it.
Language in Elorza’s letter is nearly identical to wording in a letter by Central Falls Mayor James Diossa to constituents two years ago explaining his own shoplifting arrest as a teenager. GoLocalProv was the first to report the similarities between the two letters.
Elorza’s campaign said the unidentified former adviser also worked on Diossa’s letter. Elorza and Diossa said in the letters that the stealing incidents were youthful mistakes and they took full responsibility.
Elorza, a law professor and former Housing Court judge, said his was sent out to some 7,000 voters because he wanted to be upfront about the arrest. He has highlighted ethics and transparency in his campaign.
“I did not know that the language from this letter was borrowed from a previous letter,” Elorza said in a debate on WPRI-TV taped Friday. “Had I known that it was, of course I would not have approved it and of course I would not have allowed it to go out.”
Solomon, meanwhile, suggested his opponent is unfit to be mayor. Solomon is the subject of an ethics complaint for failing to disclose business interests in filings he has since amended. He has called them clerical errors.
Reached Friday, independent candidate and former Mayor Vincent “Buddy” Cianci Jr. said he wasn’t familiar with the specifics of the accusations or the Elorza campaign’s response, and didn’t have any comment. He said his campaign is busy focusing on the issues.
“I don’t really have anything to say about Mr. Elorza. Whatever they do, they do. They’ve had those charges going back and forth now about who’s fit and who’s unfit,” said Cianci, referring to the Democrats. “Why don’t they start talking about the real issues in the campaign?
“Everybody has things in their backgrounds that are problematic,” said Cianci, who was twice forced from office after felony convictions, including racketeering conspiracy, for which he spent several years in prison. “Let’s focus on the future because elections are about the future, not the past.”
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Associated Press writer Dave Collins contributed to this article.
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