New York Daily News

CHACHI LOVES NAZIS

- BY NANCY DILLON Christophe­r Brennan ndillon@nydailynew­s.com

THE TRUTH IS — he’s heartless.

That’s the conclusion drawn by Jillian Soto, the sister of slain Sandy Hook teacher Vicki Soto, after actor Scott Baio retweeted an outrageous “truther” meme Thursday suggesting the recent death of Heather Heyer in Charlottes­ville, Va., was a hoax put on by the same so-called crisis actors used in Newtown.

Baio eventually deleted the meme and admitted late Thursday he was “wrong” to push it out to his 218,000 followers — but he’d simultaneo­usly blocked Soto’s family on the social media platform, Jillian told the Daily News.

“I can’t accept an apology from someone who spews hate. Whether he believes it or not, just sharing it has an impact,” she said. “His apology is not real. He personally chose to share this, then he chose to block my family when we tried to defend ourselves. That doesn’t feel like a sincere apology.”

Baio — whose Twitter profile picture shows him standing with President Trump — said in his mea culpa that “in retrospect,” he wished he had “thought longer about sharing that conspiracy photo.” wrote.

The meme was a side-by-side comparison of photos of Heyer’s mom Susan Bro and Soto’s mom Donna Soto that suggested they were the same person.

“To be honest, it’s heartbreak­ing,” Jillian said Friday. “My family “It was wrong,” he has been attacked over and over. What people don’t understand is that no matter what they believe, every time this comes up, it rips my family apart to see my mom being attacked yet again.”

She called hoax theories the “never-ending low blow.”

“I know it’s all a load of crap, but to have people attack my mom, that’s one of the hardest things for a child to see,” she said.

“We’re constantly being put on the defensive, having to defend Vicki, that she was a real person who was alive and we’re not these crisis actors,” she said. “We see people’s comments and see people supporting (Baio), it’s hard.”

Baio later unblocked Soto, and denied he’d done so in the first place. He said he wished her “nothing but the best after all you’ve suffered. Our politics are different, but your pain comes through clearly.”

Baio isn’t alone when it comes to hyper-partisan peddlers of truther conspiraci­es.

Conservati­ve fringe firebrand Dinesh D’Souza recently suggested to his 585,000 Twitter followers that Jason Kessler, the white supremacis­t who was a main organizer of the Charlottes­ville “Unite the Right” rally, is a liberal double agent.

Late Thursday, he retweeted a specious report claiming Kessler used to collect a paycheck from CNN. The network has said the Jason Kessler who worked for them is a different person.

 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States