Registered sex offender found to have collected signatures for Jesus 'Chuy' Garcia's mayoral campaign
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Chicago mayoral candidate Jesús "Chuy" Garcia turned in more than 5,000 pages of petition signatures in less than three weeks.
But CBS 2 Political Investigator Dana Kozlov found one of the people who gathered those signatures is a registered sex offender. Garcia's campaign is now making changes.
Congressman Garcia kicked off his mayoral campaign days after winning reelection to the U.S. House of Representatives. Campaign staffers and volunteers then took part in a frenzy of petition signature gathering over the next few weeks so he could officially file to run for mayor.
But CBS 2 has learned one of those gatherers - James Munoz Sr., 63 – is a registered sex offender in the State of Illinois. His crime was the aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a 14-year-old child in 2017.
Munoz, we learned, collected 16 pages of signatures that Garcia turned in to the Chicago Board of Elections. Garcia's campaign manager confirmed that is less 1 percent of all the signatures collected.
But how Munoz got those signatures is not clear. By law, registered sex offenders are prohibited from going within 500 feet of schools or parks, in addition to other restrictions that would put them in close contact with children.
Garcia's campaign manager said Munoz "is not and was never a member of our staff nor on our payroll." Garcia's campaign manager goes on to say they will ensure that Munoz does not interact with the campaign again.
But this is not the first campaign red flag for Garcia. Last week, mayoral opponent Paul Vallas criticized Garcia for now-indicted cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried – who donated to Garcia's congressional campaign.
Garcia's campaign manager points out many people circulated petitions, which were available online, before they were turned in to the Board of Elections.
Meantime, the mayor's race is heating up – with Garcia racking up many big endorsements.