Broxson: Yard signs stolen by opponent

MILTON, Fla. (WALA) - In the Florida District Race, two of the candidates are at odds. Greg Brown is accused of stealing Doug Broxson's campaign signs. Broxson says he has proof, while Brown says he had permission.

Broxson, a candidate vying for the Republican nomination for the District 1 House seat in Florida's August 24 primary, believes yard signs have been stolen by an opponent.

Broxson alleges Brown stole signs placed by the Highway 87 roadway in Milton. He claims the signs were taken by Brown and his wife. Broxson says video shot by his son Jason shows it all.

"There may be a perception issue. We had nothing to hide, we didn't come in cover of darkness. We were on way home from political event at 8:30 at night. I had magnets on my car. We stopped, took down some campaign signs that didn't have permission to be there on someone's private property," explained Brown.

Tuesday afternoon, investigators carried several Doug Broxson campaign signs out of Brown's garage.

"We had been missing numbers of signs, hundreds. It had become such a big problem, we figured we had to find the source of it. We assumed it was kids, but we found it was not. That one location, they'd been moved earlier in the week." said Broxson.

However, Brown says they weren't doing anything wrong. He says he was allowed to remove the signs because they were on the private property of one of his own supporters. Brown says he had exclusive rights to put up his signs and remove others.

"The video in question was deliberately taken and distributed to appear as if I had participated in some type of juvenile campaign trick," Brown said. "After witnessing me removing the signs, as I had permission to do, rather than call the property owner or myself, Doug Broxson's campaign anonymously dropped off the video with press, email lists, and the Sheriff's department to discredit me."

In the same statement, issued Tuesday afternoon, property owner Don Dewrell said he gave Brown permission to put his signs on the property.

"Greg Brown called me several months ago for permission to place his sign on my property at State Road 87 and State Road 89 and I gave him exclusive permission to place his campaign signs there," owner of the property, Don Dewrell, said on Monday. "Within that exclusive permission he had the authority to remove any of his opponents' signs that appeared on my property. None of his opponents asked for permission."

It's private property, Brown says Broxson was trespassing on. However, Broxson says it's clearly public property. He says they were more than a 100 feet from the property line.

"It's with no doubt about it, it's public property. Not even close to being private property." said Broxson.

The evidence has been turned into the Santa Rosa County Sheriff's Office. They are now looking over the video to see if a crime was actually committed.

The video put up on youtube.com and has already received more than 1,000 hits.