James Dunn, the former campaign manager for two Polk County School Board candidates aligned with County Citizens Defending Freedom in 2022, pleaded guilty Thursday morning to seven first-degree misdemeanors for violating text message disclosure requirements.
State Attorney Brian Haas’ office said Dunn orchestrated a smear campaign against incumbent School Board Member Lisa Miller by paying two companies to send anonymous text messages to thousands of Polk County Republican voters. The messages falsely claimed that Miller and her husband, Bob, were “the subject of a criminal investigation,” falsely claimed that Lisa Miller was the subject of a Polk County Public Schools investigation, and made a false accusation that Miller is racist.
Dunn, who served more than three years in federal prison for previous felony convictions, was charged in March 2023 after a seven-month investigation.
Assistant State Attorney Brad Copley insisted that Dunn travel from his home in Texas to the Polk County court complex in Bartow for Thursday morning’s hearing, where Dunn was placed on 11 months probation and ordered to pay $335 in court costs, plus $100 investigative costs.
Copley said in court that “the weight of this case is, perhaps, more than what the charges show.” He explained that there is no state law against making a false statement and texting it out to thousands of people. “But the violation we caught him on was sort of a technical violation, but that’s all we could find.”
Dunn did not apologize to the Millers, who were in court.
Drawing a line against ‘dirty politics’
Lisa and Bob Miller own a real estate company, MillShire Realty. They have two children, Evie, 12, and Michael, 21, who is profoundly autistic.
During her victim impact statement to Judge Robert Griffin, Miller talked about her longtime advocacy for special needs children and her work for the community on the School Board.
“It is appalling that the leaders of a local political group chose to recruit this criminal and inflict him on the people of Polk County. I consider Steve Maxwell and his political group, the former CCDF, who recruited Mr. Dunn, just as morally guilty in this incident,” Miller said.
“This group and others that are similar, bring people in to disrupt a community and turn their backs and pretend to be at arm’s length when crimes are committed,” she said.
“I hope other people with warped ambitions and broken moral compasses pay attention to the consequences of these illegal actions.”
polk county School board member lisa miller
“I am grateful that prosecutors chose to draw a clear line here in our community between dirty politics and petty crime. I hope other people with warped ambitions and broken moral compasses pay attention to the consequences of these illegal actions,” Miller said.
Miller defeated Jill Sessions during the 2022 race. The other candidate Dunn represented, Terry Clark, also lost against incumbent Kay Fields.
It was unclear if Rick Nolte used Dunn’s services. Clark had written in a social media post that Nolte had, but Nolte’s campaign finance records do not show a payment to Dunn. Nolte was backed by CCDF, which now calls itself Citizens Defending Freedom, as were Clark and Sessions.
A pattern of criminal behavior
Although the malicious text messages were sent from seven anonymous phone numbers, state attorney investigator David Lopez wrote in his report that “James Dunn’s business bank account was utilized to pay for the text messages sent through uCampaign. … The name associated to the uCampaign account was James Dunn. Also associated to the uCampaign account was James Dunn’s cell phone number, email address, and company debit card.”
The text messages ran afoul of state election laws because they did not include the phrase “paid for by,” nor did they include the name of the person or organization sponsoring the text message.
This is not the first brush with criminal behavior for Dunn, who works as a Texas political consultant.
Dunn was convicted of felony fraud in 2008, according to government documents uncovered by writer and former School Board member Billy Townsend, a supporter of Miller’s.
A 2008 news release issued by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of the Inspector General shows Dunn pleaded guilty to one count of submitting fraudulent claims for more than $300,000 to the government between 2002 and 2004, when he was the owner and operator of the now-defunct Rehab Specialist Inc. and claiming to be providing vocational training to veterans and people with disabilities.
“Dunn received contracts from the Texas Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services … from funds awarded by the U.S. Department of Education to provide vocational rehabilitation training to individuals with mental and physical disabilities,” the news release states. They say he fraudulently claimed “he was providing employment training and coaching to clients with disabilities when the clients were not receiving such training.”
He served nearly three years in prison for that.
Townsend also uncovered that Dunn has not complied with a 2021 Texas court order for his companies to repay $21,293 to Community Temple Church of God In Christ Houston. The church sued the companies in civil court and won.
Dunn didn’t say anything during the hearing. Outside the courtroom, he spoke with NewsChannel 8’s Staci DaSilva. She asked him if he regretted his behavior or would admit the text messages he sent were lies.
“I don’t want to corrupt some ongoing investigations regarding those texts so I’m going to defer that comment,” Dunn said. “I don’t want to corrupt any type of other questions or issues that I have to be compelled to get involved with on a civil level, so I’m going to go ahead and defer to my attorney and not make any further comments.”
DaSilva also asked if he had a response to Miller’s impact statement.
“I really don’t have a response at this time,” Dunn said. ”There may be other developments so I don’t want to do anything to corrupt that.”
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“Dunn, who served more than three years in federal prison for a previous felony convictions.” Some people just never learn, eh?