GOP county chair victim of fake Twitter

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -  

Brevard County Republican Party Chair Jason Steele says he's no stranger to inner party battles. Now, unfortunately, he says, he is no stranger to inner party mudslinging and identity theft, which is why he got investigators at the Brevard County Sheriff's Office involved.

Lifelong Floridian and staunch Republican Jason Steele has been the Brevard County GOP Executive Committee Chair for a year.

In Florida politics going on 40 years. He never imagined that he would have to consider pressing criminal charges against a fellow party member.

"This was an orchestrated, engineered strategy to put me in false light before I went in front of the Grievance Committee, so that they would remove me from being Chairman of the party, that's my opinion," said Steele.

He said discovered a Twitter page set up fictitiously under his name, with his picture, similar to his real Twitter page.

But on the false page? He found a string of what he calls slanderous comments.

Steele described some of the comments:

"Things like I've announced again for House seat 31, this time I'll take Tobia down; Jim Greer is incapable of running the Republican Party; it's 9:15 and I'm drunk as hell! Anyone want to join me for a drink?"

Steele said it all began right before a grievance hearing, a party member accused him of speaking negatively of the Governor.

Steele said he never spoke negatively of the Governor, just negatively about the state party endorsing the position of Governor in the Senatorial race.

The party did censure him and put him on probation. Steele took the Twitter page to the Sheriff's Office, who tracked it back to one person.

Though investigators wouldn't tell us who that person is because the investigation is ongoing, we tracked down that person's lawyer, Richard Torpy, and he says it's 20-something party member Tim Nungesser.

Steele says Nungesser apologized and told him, "Tim Nungesser said to me that this was not his idea."

By phone, Nungesser's attorney told us, "Tim knows what he did was wrong. He wanted to support his party and he made a mistake."

An agent on the case says he'll have his investigation wrapped up by the end of the week. That's when Steele will decide if he presses charges.