Jesse Mallen lives in Buffalo, so he did not initially see the ad on the airwaves that mentioned his “baby sister.”
“Every client she ever had, in her veterinary practice, sang her praises,” Mallen said in an interview Wednesday evening. “I heard quite a bit from a lot of them after they passed, most of whom I had never met before, or ever heard from before ... but they loved her, and so did all of her colleagues.”
The 30-second hit, attacking Democratic former U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown for his immigration record, aired last month. It featured video of the fatal highway crash that killed Mallen’s sister Lynnea Soposki, his brother-in-law Luke Soposki and their one-year-old son Logan Soposki earlier this year.
But nobody, he said, with U.S. Sen. Jon Husted’s campaign or the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) asked his relatives about the ad before airing it.
“We, of course, would have refused,” Mallen said.
A local photographer who had taken portraits of the Soposkis being used without permission reached out to Mallen, he said.
“My whole goal here is to make sure that their legacy is preserved,” Mallen said. “If I were to make any sort of statement about my own personal politics, I feel like I would not be any better than the NRSC or Sen. Husted, because I would be politicizing my deceased family.”
Modou Ngom, the 50-year-old driver of the semi-truck accused of causing the chain-reaction crash, was indicted on vehicular homicide and vehicular assault charges but is not right now facing immigration related charges.
Amy Natoce, a spokesperson for Jon Husted for Senate, said Wednesday the campaign “forwarded the family’s letter to the committee” when it received it. Natoce did not comment further.
Over text, NRSC regional spokesperson Nick Puglia defended the ad, writing, “for 32 years, radical leftist Sherrod Brown backed open border policies that cost Ohioans their lives, without ever apologizing.”
“Our ad campaigns will continue to hold Sherrod Brown accountable,” Puglia said.
It’s no longer airing, but it’s still on YouTube, although the comments are disabled alongside other recent.
