Virginia GOP Candidate Demands Opponent Stop Using 'Fake Family' Photo In Ads

Derrick Anderson sent a cease-and-desist order over the spots, including a hilarious ad depicting him with cardboard cutouts of someone else's family.

WASHINGTON — Virginia GOP congressional candidate Derrick Anderson has issued a cease-and-desist order to his Democratic opponent, Eugene Vindman, over campaign ads accusing Anderson of trying to pass off someone else’s wife and three daughters as his own family.

Anderson, who is unmarried and has no children, made national headlines in September after The New York Times flagged that his campaign was using footage of him posing with the woman and children in what could easily be mistaken for a family photo shoot, except it turned out to be a friend’s family.

One video featuring Anderson with the woman and girls was shared on Anderson’s YouTube channel and posted on a website paid for by the National Republican Campaign Committee. In a separate video his campaign filmed for a possible ad, Anderson is shown sitting around a dining room table with the same woman and girls.

Anderson’s campaign told HuffPost in September that this footage was simply him appearing in “a normal campaign video with female supporters and their kids.”

But in the final days of this election cycle, Vindman and Democratic groups are running a barrage of campaign ads accusing Anderson, who reportedly lives with his dog and is engaged, of trying to give voters the impression that he’s a family man. And Anderson’s campaign responded with a cease-and-desist letter, saying on Monday that Vindman and local TV stations don’t have the right to air images of the family seen in Anderson’s videos.