A Texas political candidate for county commissioner has been charged with faking an online harassment campaign after he spent months sending racist messages to himself on Facebook.*
Taral Patel, a Democratic Party candidate running in the third precinct of Fort Bend county, was arrested and charged with one third-degree felony count of online impersonation and a Class A misdemeanor charge of misrepresentation of identity after an investigation by the county district attorney’s office revealed he was responsible for a string of online hateful and derogatory comments purportedly directed at himself.
“As your Democratic candidate for County Commissioner, I am always open to criticism of my policy positions and stances on issues,” Patel said in an online post in September, posting a collage of the alleged harassing comments. “However, when my Republican opponents supporters' [sic] decide to hurl racist, anti-immigrant, Hinduphobic, or otherwise disgusting insults at my family, faith community, colleagues, and me – that crosses a line.”
Patel’s Republican Party opponent incumbent Commissioner Andy Meyers requested an investigation of the comments after recognizing one of the partially-concealed usernames as an account that had previously launched attacks at himself.
The investigation revealed Patel had used an image of an actual local resident as the profile photo for one of the accounts, leading to the online impersonation charge.
Patel paid a total of $22,500 bond to leave county jail Thursday, with his court date scheduled for July 22.
*Facebook/Meta is banned in the Russian Federation for extremist activities.