Las Vegas Review-Journal

Bundy campaign’s site advocated eye for an eye

Candidate deleted post by campaign manager

- By Colton Lochhead Las Vegas Review-journal

Murder for murder. Rape for rape. All “live streamed, available for public consumptio­n.”

That’s the platform the campaign website for Nevada gubernator­ial candidate Ryan Bundy said would be implemente­d if he is elected this fall.

“Instead of paying for ineffectiv­e jail sentences, Ryan Bundy proposes to The People of Nevada a more efficient retributio­n process: ‘eyefor-an-eye,’” the site said.

The post, which Bundy had removed after he saw it, was done by campaign manager Cardiff Gerhardt without approval.

“Once I read it, I took it down,” Bundy said.

Gerhardt’s post went on to call for not one death sentence for someone convicted of multiple murders, but rather one death sentence for each act of murder, with the convicted apparently being brought back to life multiple times to fulfill this.

“If you murder 10 people, you will be murdered 10 times before your freedom is returned to you (we can remove the final resuscitat­ion if the prisoner so chooses),” the site said.

And convicted rapists would be “raped 3 times as forced by the Nevada Government and orchestrat­ed by the victims (if they are still alive).”

The post also called for maximum prison sentences of five years and said all punishment and rehabilita­tion would be livestream­ed.

But sometime Tuesday morning, the section detailing the “eye-for-aneye” punishment on Bundy’s campaign website was deleted.

Bundy said in a phone interview Tuesday that he was unaware that the section had been posted to his campaign website and that he doesn’t support those ideas.

“That’s not my words. That’s not my ideals,” Bundy said. “I did not approve of that. I did not review it. I had not even read it. It went up there prior to my approval.”

Bundy said the content was posted by Gerhardt.

“It was all my ideals,” Gerhardt told the Review-journal. “The reason it was put in there was, well, because I think it’s fair.”

Gerhardt said he joined the campaign seven weeks ago, and the content was posted without Bundy’s approval because the campaign is trying to build up quickly with fewer than 50 days until Election Day.

“We need to move very fast because we are the underdog, the people’s choice,” Gerhardt said.

Gerhardt, despite his rogue move, will stay on as Bundy’s campaign manager.

“He’s doing a lot of good work,” Bundy said. “But those are his words.”

Contact Capital Bureau Chief Colton Lochhead at clochhead@ reviewjour­nal.com. Follow @ Coltonloch­head on Twitter.

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