10-19-2022
Arizona GOP Candidate Arrested For Allegedly Masturbating In Truck Near Preschool
Maricopa County officials say it's too late to remove Randy Kaufman from the ballot in the race for a college district board.
A GOP candidate running for an Arizona college district’s governing board was arrested on a charge of public sexual indecency after an officer allegedly caught him masturbating
in his truck near a preschool.
Randy Kaufman was arrested Oct. 4 but suspended his campaign Tuesday following media reports of his arrest. Kaufman is running for the governing board of the Maricopa County Community College District, and was allegedly caught masturbating by the county’s community college police.
“I fucked up,” Kaufman told an officer during his arrest, according to a police report.
The report says the incident began when an officer with the Maricopa County Community Colleges Police approached Kaufman’s parked vehicle and saw the man with his pants down.
“[Kaufman] appeared to be looking at a cell phone in one hand,” the police report said. “I immediately became alarmed as I saw [Kaufman] had his pants down mid-thigh and was exposed showing his fully erect nude penis. [Kaufman] was manipulating his genitals in a masturbatory manner.”
The officer said Kaufman didn’t seem to notice the officer at first, but that Kaufman was in view of a nearby bicyclist and a preschool where children were playing outside. When confronted, the officer said, Kaufman apologized for the act.
“I’m sorry,” Kaufman said, according to the report. “I fucked up. I’m really stressed.”
Kaufman, who told police he worked as an officer with the Arizona Department of Corrections for 27 years, said he didn’t know there was a preschool just feet away, according to the report.
“Are you going to put that in the report?” the officer said Kaufman asked.
“Don’t you see how alarming that is?” the officer responded, according to the report. “That there are children nearby, people passing on bikes and in cars where they can look and see what you are doing?”
In a Facebook post from May, Kaufman said he wanted “our children protected [from] the progressive left.”
Kaufman was charged with public sexual indecency, but 12News in Phoenix reported that Kaufman could also face a possible felony charge because of his proximity to the preschool.
Despite the charge, the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office said it’s too late for Kaufman’s name to be removed from the ballot, and some people have already voted early.
In a statement about his suspended campaign, Kaufman didn’t address the arrest, but said he “will never stop fighting to protect the United States Constitution and the values that make America the greatest country in the world.”
Kaufman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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