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Las Vegas, NV – A Democratic super PAC employee was arrested for attacking a female Republican campaign manager on Tuesday night.
Kristen Davison, the 31-year-old campaign manager for Nevada Republican gubernatorial candidate Adam Laxalt, told police that 50-year-old Wilfred “Mike” Stark grabbed and twisted her arm, and refused to let go, FOX News reported.
“Politics is a little bit aggressive these days, but this is just insane,” Davison told Fox News. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Davison was talking with her candidate and a reporter after a school choice campaign event on Oct. 16 when Stark “aggressively” interrupted them and shoved his own camera in Laxalt’s face, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
“This man was physically almost body-checking me,” Davidson told FOX News. “I was getting nervous for my safety, so we left, and went into an open room.”
Laxalt and his people went into a room and closed the door to finish their meeting, but Stark followed them, according to the police report.
“He grabbed my right arm, my leg was lodged between the door and the wall. He twisted my arm, and contorted it behind my back,” Davison said. “I was scared. Every time I tried pulling away, he would grab tighter, and pull me closer into him.”
Davison told FOX News that her assailant pulled her head into his chest and held her there for several minutes. Afterward, she had bruises on her neck and arm, and said it “felt like an hour” that she’d been trapped.
“I was scared and screaming ‘stop, you’re hurting me,’” she told FOX News.
That’s when Stark addressed the candidate directly.
“Adam, there’s only one way you can make this stop,” Stark told Laxalt.
“That really scared me,” Davison told FOX News.
“Kristin was terrified and begged for him to stop and could not get free until Las Vegas City Marshals intervened,” Laxalt campaign spokesman Parker Briden told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Stark was arrested by the city marshals and booked on suspicion of battery. He was released from the Las Vegas city jail on $1,140 bail late on Wednesday.
At the time of his arrest, Stark was employed by anti-republican Super PAC American Bridge 21st Century, a watchdog fundraising organization that claims to hold “Republicans accountable for their words and actions,” the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Liberal billionaire George Soros is the organization’s largest donor, having contributed more than $2 million between 2015 and 2016.
He contributed an additional $80,000 in 2017 and has so far donated $300,000 in 2018, FOX News reported.
American Bridge was quick to distance themselves from Stark after news of his latest arrest became public.
“Last night one of our employees was involved in an incident with a member of Adam Laxalt’s campaign in Nevada. In response to that incident, we have decided to relieve this employee of his duties with American Bridge effective immediately,” the political fundraising organization told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
This was not Stark’s first arrest while working for American Bridge, FOX News reported.
He was arrested and charged with assault after he attacked the press secretary for U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, The Washington Times reported.
The police report said Stark approached Zinke and started yelling at him outside of a congressional hearing.
Zinke kept walking, so Stark body-checked the staffer behind the secretary, Heather Swift, according to The Washington Times.
Swift told U.S. Capitol Police that Stark had forced his way into an elevator with Zinke and his staff two days before he assaulted her, and that she wanted to press charges on the second incident to help get a protective order against him.
Stark was also arrested for disorderly conduct in Virginia in October of 2017 after he acted out while he was covering then-Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie for American Bridge, The Washington Times reported.