FBI Begins Investigation into Fraudulent Scott Eckersley Quits Congressional Race

The Friday before last November's Congressional race brought the drama of dirty politics into Missouri's 7th District. A fraudulent e-mail claiming Democrat Scott Eckersley quit the race made the rounds in newsrooms throughout Southwest Missouri causing one news source to actually report the story before verifying it with the Eckersley campaign on the morning newscast.

Eckersley never quit the race, but he did consider the e-mail damaging and believes the e-mail was an effort from insiders within his opponents campaign. Tracing the ISP that the e-mail was sent tied the e-mail to a Chicagoland political consulting firm ran by Patrick Binning, a former Springfield resident who attended Greenwood Laboratory Schools, which automatically tied him to the now Republican Congressman from the Seventh District. The ties came after a fraudulent Scott Eckersley twitter account and Lakefront Strategies entire Web presence was removed shortly after Eckersley announced the e-mail had been sent to the FBI and the Federal Election Commission.

The Department of Justice has granted the FBI approval to move forward in an investigation to discover who is behind the fraudulent e-mail and whether or not the e-mail was funded by the current Congressman's campaign.