Wingard's Ex does a 180

"I'm not going to support him if he's going to lie about it."

Those were the words of Stacy Pico, mother of GOP state house candidate Matt Wingard's son, who went on the record with the Oregonian yesterday.

When Wingard announced his candidacy for the Oregon legislature back in January, he confessed to abusing his then 7 year-old son in 2001 and that he knew it was wrong and he "should not have done it."  He was charged with three counts of assault, mistreatment and harassment, including two felony charges.  The charges were later reduced and Wingard pled guilty to one misdemeanor charge.

House Democrats, who clearly have enough money to throw around, seized on the opportunity to highlight Wingard's abusive treatment in a recent political mailing and now Wingard claims Pico's abuse claims are not true.  Pico had shown her support of Wingard earlier, but now appears to be retracting that support because Wingard is claiming he was just fooling around with his son and no abuse took place.  Naturally, BlueOregon has all the documents up on their site in a blog by activist Carla Axtman.

The article details all the allegations of abuse from force-feeding his son when he wouldn't eat to locking his son in a dark stairwell to overcome fears of the dark.  

Minority Leader Bruce Hanna tried to dump Wingard for another candidate earlier in the campaign, but with a drought of GOP candidates in the ever increasing blue state, he is stuck with this pick and will now have to defend child abuse in order to maintain that Wilsonville seat.  

Wingard's Democratic opponent, Jessica Adamson, stands by the mailing stating "I believe voters deserve to have the full measure of my record and his record before they decide this election."