By Javier Manjarres

Republican congressional candidate Ozzie deFaria didn’t do very well answering some straightforward questions I posed to him about some specific accusations he has made against Karen Harrington, one of deFaria’s opponents in Republican primary, The winner of the which will face off against Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz in November.

I caught up with deFaria at a candidate forum in Davie where I took the opportunity to ask him a few questions- questions that simply required a yes or no answer, so I thought.

The entire footage runs eight minutes, so we’ve split the encounter into two videos.

The first allegation I questioned deFaria was his claim that “Harrington owes $190K”- in fact, Harrington’s campaign owes Harrington $190K- Harrington loaned herself that amount in the 2010 election cycle. deFaria was a bit mixed in his response, the mailer states “Karen’s campaign has an additional $190,000 in loans,” but deFaria did correctly state that “her campaign owes” the $190K, yet on his mailer also states “That’s too much debt for a “fiscal conservative.”

So Ozzie, does she owe the $190,000, or does her campaign owe her the $190,000? 

deFaria cited the doyouknowkaren.com website, a site which is full of unsubstantiated accusations as being “100% factual.” This is the same website that deFaria posted a phony mugshot of yours truly using my 2010 Florida Driver’s License.  There is an active investigation as to how my driver’s license photo was obtained by deFaria or one of his surrogates.(Source-Phony mugshot)

With regards to his jobs creation claims, deFaria simply wants us to take his word for it, or at least that his friends believe he created that many jobs. We’ve been unable to independently verify whether his claims are substantiated.

[vsw id=”HcXZoDsOPiI” source=”youtube” width=”425″ height=”344″ autoplay=”no”]

So let’s be clear here- deFaria loaned his campaign $273,173 this election cycle, Harrington loaned her campaign a total of $232,783 since 2010.  There’s simply no credible way for deFaria to make hay with this, and for him to refer to Harrington as a ‘big spender’ when he loaned his own campaign more than Harrington did? 

In deFaria’s eyes, its not OK for his opponents campaigns to owe money, but its OK for his campaign to do so. Here are the exact FEC numbers for both candidates. Notice how Harrington has only loaned herself $5000, in addition to the $40,000 credit card debt deFaria mentioned. Again, here is the $273,173 that deFaria has put into his campaign, the same amount he refused to answer yes or no, as to whether he did or not. Another point to make is, deFaria was only able to raise $121,441 from donors, the rest was from himself. Compare that with Harrington’s base, and there is simply no comparison.

I have absolutely nothing to hide. –Ozzie deFaria

It got worse for deFaria- he claims that Harrington “embellishes” her small business claims because she only owns a sixth of her business which is divided among family members and partners. deFaria’s could barely keep his emotions under control as I asked him why he would make such a claim.

Finally, I asked deFaria directly whether he still believes the content pertaining to yours truly on his anti-Harrington website is “100% factual” to which deFaria stated, “I don’t really know.”

So is it or is it not 100% factual when you don’t even know everything that is on the website?

If you live in South Florida, this is a must share article. Does deFaria belong in Congress?

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