Fraser mayor candidate claims questioned

FRASER - Is it a case of dirty politics in Macomb County? A mayoral candidate is accused of posting lies about himself on his campaign material - and his rivals are quick to call him out.

Paul Cilluffo says he's being unfairly targeted and that there are no lies in his campaign literature. But his accuser says there are.

"This one seems to have a lot of things on his literature that turn out to be untrue," said councilman Matt Hemelberg.

Hemelberg is raising plenty of questions about a colleague's campaign literature.

Cilluffo is running for mayor and says he was a campus police officer at Macomb Community College

"According to the Macomb Community College Police Department, Paul Cilluffo is 'not, nor has ever been a police officer with the Macomb College police department,'" said Hemelberg, reading from a letter.

And that's not all Hemelberg says Cilluffo's claims of having a law enforcement degree from the college is also a lie.

"I called and checked on that and got a voice mail back," Hemelberg said.

Macomb Community College's public information officer backs that up saying Cilluffo obtained a certificate in automotive mechanics.

"This is nothing more than a political spin by the gentleman that's running against me," Cilluffo said. "But he's doing it through a councilman and it seems like they've linked up and are pretty tight."

Cilluffo says he has nothing to hide, his campaign flyer is essentially true and that the letter doesn't tell the real story, because he patrolled campus nearly 40 years ago.

"Back then it wasn't technically called a police officer however, what it was we were in charge of the building sites, security and things of that nature," he said. "We didn't carry guns back then, we carried large flashlights. The car said Macomb Community College police on it."

As for the law enforcement degree, Cilluffo says he changed his major and never applied for the degree but had more than enough credits to obtain it.

"I guess you could say it is misleading, it wasn't done for that reason," Cilluffo said.

Cilluffo says he was just highlighting his experience and the training he undertook to become a cop as well as his extensive community involvement.

Hemelberg is convinced of the opposite.

"I just think it's not right to tell the residents all these things about you and turns out half of them are false," he said.

Hemelberg claims that he is not in cahoots with the opposing candidate, Joe Nichols and says he will be examining his records as well.