Council Candidate Reports Campaign Sign Thefts, Identifies Suspect
From the Montgomery Fix website....
POTOMAC, Md. — A Montgomery County Council candidate says his campaign has lost dozens of yard signs to theft and that police have identified a woman suspected of taking them.
Reardon Sullivan, a Republican candidate for the District 1 seat on the County Council, says his campaign has been losing as many as 40 signs a week. He installed motion-activated trail cameras and Apple AirTags to document the incidents and track signs that disappear.
Sullivan identified Eileen Hershberger as the woman he believes is responsible for the thefts, saying police had identified her after reviewing the evidence. Montgomery Fix reviewed surveillance footage provided by Sullivan and compared images of the woman with publicly available photographs of Hershberger. The visual comparison led the publication to conclude that the woman pictured appears to be Hershberger. Montgomery County police have not independently confirmed that identification to Montgomery Fix.
The Montgomery County Department of Police has assigned three report numbers to the incidents: 260043988, 260043989 and 260043990, according to an email Sullivan received from Cpl. Dominic Markajani of the department’s 2nd District on Oct. 7.
In an email to Markajani the following morning, Sullivan thanked the officer for taking the reports and said his campaign places signs in the public right-of-way in accordance with county guidelines.
Sullivan subsequently sent the officer additional video footage, writing on Oct. 9 that a woman appeared to have removed signs from three locations the previous night.
The candidate also reported that an AirTag attached to a missing sign led to Burton Glen Drive in Rockville. Public records show the residence is Hershberger’s home.
In his correspondence with Sullivan, Markajani asked whether the signs and cameras involved in the reported incidents had been located on public or private property. Sullivan replied that the area where a camera and signs were taken were public property and provided location coordinates.
Sullivan also published a video about the alleged thefts on YouTube and contacted fellow County Council candidate Julie Yang, inviting her to join him in publicly condemning campaign-sign theft. In that message, Sullivan said an investigation was underway and explicitly stated that he was not suggesting Yang’s campaign was involved.
“Although we are competing in this election, I believe we can agree that every candidate deserves to participate without having campaign signs stolen or damaged,” Sullivan wrote. He told Montgomery Fix he has not received a response from Yang.
Hershberger’s response to the allegation was not available for this report. Montgomery County police had not provided further details about the investigation by publication time.
The investigation remains ongoing, according to Sullivan’s correspondence. Additional suspects are being sought for the theft of other Sullivan campaign signs.
An allegation of theft is not a finding of guilt, and no criminal charge or conviction has been established in the records reviewed by Montgomery Fix.