Candidate Ted DiNoto calls it “reprehensible” that one of his rivals in the race for Erie County sheriff accepted money from the father of a Capitol rioter who admits taking the badge and radio of a police officer overrun by the “stop the steal” mob on Jan. 6.
“How outraged is the Republican Party and John Garcia about what happened on Jan. 6?” DiNoto said in a statement. “That is the question many ask, myself included.”
DiNoto, a Republican, is running on an independent line. Garcia, the Republican nominee after winning the party primary, accepted a $200 campaign donation a few weeks ago from Eugene Sibick of Amherst, a politically active Republican who calls his son Thomas Sibick, now held in a Washington jail, a “political prisoner.”
Said DiNoto: “Accepting support, in any form, from a close relative of a man who is accused of participating in one of the most heinous assaults on our country’s democratic process, the desecration of our most sacred symbol of the American people and our government, as well as the violent assault and robbery of a police officer is reprehensible.”
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Garcia, whose campaign has accepted donations from hundreds of people and did not know of Eugene Sibick’s connection to the rioter, has said he can’t blame a father for the deeds of a son.
Footage from the Erie County Correctional Facility shows Corrections Officer Anil Kawal close the hatch on a cell door on the arm of inmate Keshon D. Thorpe following an offensive verbal tirade by Thorpe, who was locked in the cell. See the full story by Matt Spina here.
In response to DiNoto, the Garcia camp said he respects everyone's First Amendment right to freedom of speech and the right to assemble peacefully.
“He has not and will not tolerate any violent behavior or rioting,” the campaign said, before taking a shot at DiNoto for accepting donations from former County Executive Joel A. Giambra. During a budget crisis in 2004, Giambra slashed allocations to the Sheriff’s Office and the District Attorney’s Office. Garcia’s team said DiNoto's association with Giambra puts politics over public safety.
"Yes, he made a generous donation to my campaign, just like many other family and friends have,” said DiNoto, explaining he had reached out to Giambra, who he has known for years, for help in understanding the political process.
Four candidates will appear on the November ballot as they seek to replace Timothy B. Howard: Democrat Kimberly Beaty now serves as Canisius College’s director of public safety after retiring from the Buffalo Police Department. Conservative Karen Healy-Case, who works for a private security firm and also is retired from the Buffalo force. Garcia is a retired Buffalo police detective. DiNoto is a detective lieutenant with the Amherst Police Department.
Eugene Sibick has told The Buffalo News he’s confident his son will be exonerated, even though court records indicate the now 36-year-old eventually admitted to the FBI that he took the badge and radio of Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone. The officer told reporters he had been beaten, dragged and stunned with a Taser by people in the mob that stormed the Capitol.
Thomas Sibick eventually turned over the muddy badge, which he had buried in his backyard, according to an FBI affidavit. The radio has not been recovered.
Eugene Sibick said he donated $200 to Garcia’s campaign because he sees Garcia as the best candidate. Meanwhile, he is appealing for money for his son.
“My son is a political prisoner,” Eugene Sibick says in a plea for prayers and for $150,000 on the fundraising website Give Send Go.
“Thomas went alone to D.C. for the sole purpose to hear the former president speak,” he said. “…This is going to be a long haul as his life has been turned upside down.” He asks people to consider donating “so Thomas will be allowed to get his life back together.”
For a few days in March, Eugene Sibick housed his son in his Amherst home on home confinement, which a federal magistrate judge in Buffalo had allowed. But prosecutors called Thomas Sibick dangerous and, citing his past convictions, persuaded a federal judge in Washington to detain him until his trial. He is now in a D.C. jail.
“This defendant was not just somebody trying to push his way into the Capitol,” Judge Beryl A. Howell said, according to a transcript of a hearing March 16. “He wasn’t just somebody screaming and yelling on the Capitol grounds. He appears to have joined in a terrible assault on a police officer who was dragged down into the mob and then stole his property…
“He stole his badge, he stole his radio, which was his lifeline to call for help. His conduct on Jan. 6 was, to put it bluntly, lawless,” Howell said. Her decision to confine Sibick was upheld on appeal.
