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County supervisor candidate caught nabbing opponents campaign literature

Dylan Svoboda / Mountain Democrat
Security footage captured at a Cameron Park home shows El Dorado County District 2 Supervisor candidate Ray Nutting taking a flier off the residence's front door.
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With the March primary election just weeks away an El Dorado County supervisor candidate has been caught on camera apparently sabotaging one of his opponent’s campaigns.

Ray Nutting, a former District 2 El Dorado County supervisor once again running for that board seat, admitted Wednesday to taking a fellow candidate’s political literature from the front door of a Cameron Park home and replacing it with his own. 

The campaign brochure belongs to Ken Pimlott, former Cal Fire chief who’s also running for the District 2 seat.



Like many wrongdoings these days, Nutting was caught by home security footage. 

After a video of the incident surfaced Tuesday evening, Jan. 13, Nutting confessed to the Mountain Democrat that he made “a silly mistake.”



“I’ve been walking hundreds and hundreds of homes,” he said. “It was the first campaign literature I saw and I was curious. I had not seen any before. It was very wrong of me to take the brochure that was meant for the property owner. I personally apologize to the homeowner … My curiosity got the best of me.”

The video that surfaced on social media captured Nutting taking a piece of paper from what appears to be a crack in the front door, placing it in his pocket and putting another paper in the same spot. The timestamp on the video indicates that the incident took place Wednesday, Jan. 8, just before 6 p.m.

He added that he realized the brochure was “political in nature” at the time but didn’t know for what candidate or cause.

Pimlott spoke lowly of Nutting’s actions, describing them as anti-democratic. 

“It’s disheartening,” Pimlott said. “We’re all just trying to do the right thing and give the voters all the information so they can decide for themselves what choices they want to make. For another candidate to do that, to willfully take information away from a voter and put his out there, it’s disingenuous.”

While serving as supervisor of District 2 in May 2013, Nutting was arrested on suspicion of felony charges of failing to disclose income, filing false documents, perjury and failing to recuse himself from votes in which he had a financial interest, among other offenses. 

After a year in limbo, Nutting was acquitted of most felony charges but subsequently found guilty on misdemeanor charges of accepting loans from county employees or contractors in May 2014. Felony charges of filing false documents ended in a mistrial due to a hung jury. 

In June 2014 Judge Timothy Buckley ruled that Nutting’s seat would be vacated due to his misdemeanor charges and the former supervisor would serve three years probation.

A special election was held for his vacated seat in September 2014. The winner of that election, Shiva Frentzen, who also won in 2016, is termed-out.

The primary election will be held March 3, 2020.


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