Wisconsin Republican Peter Schmidt, who appears to be forbidden from running for a state seat in November, is downplaying his homosexual history in order to appeal to conservative Christian voters.
Schmidt won the six-party primary earlier this month by 63 votes, making him the plausible Republican contender for six seats in the red zone. However, his nomination means that more people are looking into his background… which is concerning for two reasons. Schmidt, then a member of the Shawano County Board of Trustees, was accused of strangling an employee to death on his family’s farm in November 2019.
OnlySky Incident stated that on November 22 of that year, two employees who lived on the farm told an authority they had overslept in the morning shift. Schmidt allegedly stormed into the apartment, “yelled at her,” and then became enraged when they weren’t finished 15 minutes later. The staff subsequently refuse to work, which irritates Schmidt:
Peter then shoved [the victim] into the bed, causing discomfort by pressing down on the base of [the victim’s] neck without his permission. [The victim] had problems breathing, began to lose consciousness, and did not fight back because he was terrified of him and would do worse things if he fought back. [The victim’s coworker] took a cell phone video of the exchange. The footage shows Peter grabbing [the victim] by the throat near the sinking bed…
Schmidt later admitted to police that he “grabbed the victim by the neck but did not choke him.” He was detained and charged with disorderly conduct (a misdemeanor) and strangulation and suffocation (a felony) in each occurrence. He was eventually sentenced to two years probation, ordered to attend anger management classes, undergo a psychological evaluation, and write an apology letter to the victim.
It all came to light when Peter Schmidt ran for the Wisconsin State House. Schmidt was chastised for the felony conviction, according to the local GOP chairman, and he was barred from attending local GOP events or displaying campaign materials at their offices. Schmidt was also requested by the chairman to withdraw from the state House race…but his demands were rejected. According to WisPolitics, the Shawano GOP has stated that it will not support Schmidt’s campaign because “members believe criminals don’t reflect the party’s values.” (The irony of Republicans claiming that criminals do not embody their ideals should not be overlooked.)
“We didn’t do anything before because, honestly, we didn’t think he was going to win,” said [Shawano GOP Chairman Richard Kuckersdorff] of Schmidt.
Because they didn’t think he’d win, they didn’t divulge his criminal history, and he did. It’s fascinating how it works. The censorship is also hardly a penalty, because a Republican is unlikely to lose a campaign in that district. Schmidt went to the local sheriff’s office on December 31, 2019, nearly a month after beating an accomplice, to make a personal complaint that someone was attempting to blackmail him.
The unknown suspect requested $50,000…in exchange for not releasing the sex film of Schmidt “performing oral sex on another man.”