One of Republican Mike Collins’ hand-picked campaign leaders has been charged with child molestation. Police say Andre Stafford pulled up next to a girl walking to her school bus and exposed himself. Collins’ campaign had promoted him as a face of its grassroots army. The election is tomorrow.
What Police Say Happened
On the morning of Oct. 15, a girl was walking to her bus stop in Smyrna, in Cobb County. According to the arrest warrant, a driver pulled up beside her, told her she was pretty and exposed himself before driving off. The Daily Beast reports the girl is under 16.
A Flock license plate camera caught a gray 2024 Kia Forte entering the area minutes earlier. Stafford is the registered owner. The girl then picked him out of a photo lineup.
Stafford is charged with felony child molestation and public indecency. A Cobb County judge initially denied him bond, ruling that he posed a danger to the community. He was later released.
Collins’ “Convoy Captain”
Stafford wasn’t some random face in a crowd. The Collins campaign listed him as its “convoy captain” for Cobb County, the same county where the alleged crime took place.
Convoy captains are the volunteer leaders Collins is counting on to beat Sen. Jon Ossoff. The campaign’s own X account featured Stafford saying only Collins could send Ossoff packing, and bragged about having 800+ captains in all 159 counties.
Stafford, 26, is also a Republican candidate himself, running for Georgia House District 42. In a post he has since deleted, he thanked Collins for endorsing him.
Not the First Time
This is not the first scandal in the program. In October, the Daily Beast found that another Collins convoy captain, Brett Benny Langham, pleaded guilty in 2014 to felony cruelty to children and sexual battery. The case involved his stepdaughter, who was under 16.
The same reporting tied at least two other Collins captains to American Patriots USA, a far-right group founded by a former Klan leader. One of them denied being racist and said the group was never a hate group.
So this is three scandals in one program, all from a Republican who has run as tough on crime.
Ossoff: Shut It Down
Ossoff has been calling on Collins for weeks to disband his “convoy captains program”, citing its reported links to the Klan and to people with criminal histories involving children.
The program kept going. At a stop in Savannah a week later, Ossoff repeated the demand while those 800-plus volunteers were still knocking on Georgia doors.
Stafford’s own opponent, Democratic state Rep. Gabriel Sanchez, said every student deserves to be safe at the bus stop in their own neighborhood.
The MAGA Photo Album
Stafford got around in Georgia Republican circles. He was photographed with a string of GOP officials, including lieutenant governor candidate Greg Dolezal, Rep. Barry Loudermilk and state Rep. Houston Gaines, who is running for Collins’ House seat.
The Daily Beast also found photos of him with Rick Jackson, the Trump-endorsed billionaire running for governor. Dolezal had publicly cheered Stafford’s run for office before the arrest.
The Gaines and Jackson campaigns say they have no ties to Stafford and that their candidates take photos with lots of people at events.
What They Say
Stafford denies everything. Asked if he would quit his race, he told FOX 5: “I have no reason to drop out, I am innocent.” He has not been convicted of anything.
The Collins campaign now says Stafford “volunteered on many campaigns across the state this year, including ours.” The campaign also called the charges sickening and said that if they’re true, Stafford belongs on a list and behind bars.
The Bottom Line
Mike Collins built a Republican army of 800 convoy captains and put them on Georgia’s doorsteps. One is now charged with exposing himself to a schoolgirl. Another pleaded guilty to crimes against his own stepdaughter. Ossoff told Collins to shut the program down. It kept knocking on doors anyway. Tomorrow, Georgia gets the final say.
Sources: The Daily Beast (Laura Esposito); FOX 5 Atlanta; Atlanta News First; WJCL; Jon Ossoff.
Is it a requirement in the Republican Party to be a rapist or child molester?