Roger Marshall alleges defamation in new ad about former Kansas patient arrested while in debt – Kansas Reflector

TOPEKA — Lawyers for a Kansas Republican senator running for re-election have sent his opponent a cease-and-desist letter demanding that the Democrat stop airing an ad featuring one of the senator’s former patients.

Lawyers for U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, Republican of Kansas, said in a letter Monday that the Rev. Adam Hamilton’s campaign published and distributed advertisements about Marshall’s medical debt collection practices that were “defamatory.”

The commercial begins with Meischa Zimmerman, who said she was arrested when she was eight months pregnant for missing a $50 payment to Marshall. According to court records, she was paying about $50 a month to account for 18 percent interest on nearly $3,600 in total debt.

The woman was among more than 700 patients Marshall sued while he was a practicing doctor in Great Bend, according to report from the New York Times.

“The unequivocal message to a reasonable viewer is that Senator Marshall caused the arrest and imprisonment of a pregnant patient for missing a single $50 payment. This message is false in every material respect“, says the letter.

The Hamilton campaign ad has been viewed more than a million times on X.

Heartland Regional OBGYN, where Marshall worked, opened a case against the woman in December 2009, according to court documents. Zimmerman was first arrested in 2011. She said in the Hamilton campaign ad that she was handcuffed while pregnant in front of her 2-year-old daughter.

Marshall’s lawyers challenged three aspects of the ad. They said Zimmerman was not arrested for a missed payment, but rather for failing to appear in court. They said the campaign ad framed the arrest on a $50 bill rather than the sum of Zimmerman’s debts. They said the arrest was no surprise, arguing that court records show Zimmerman “was summoned to court in three different counties by eight different companies over a period of years, including by another hospital and in connection with eviction proceedings.”

Zimmerman said in the ad: “Roger Marshall preyed on low-income families in Kansas. »

The letter demanded that Hamilton’s campaign remove the ad within 24 hours, issue a formal retraction and apology, and stop republishing or promoting false claims.

“Falsely accusing a doctor of having a pregnant patient arrested for a $50 bill directly undermines Senator Marshall’s professional integrity as a physician and his fitness to hold public office, and this was broadcast to thousands of Kansas voters in the final weeks of an election,” the cease and desist letter states.

As of Monday afternoon, the campaign had neither apologized nor removed the ad from social media.

Hamilton’s campaign, Hamilton for Kansas, spent at least $7,500 serving the ad to YouTube users between 165,000 and 280,000 times Friday through Monday, according to Google ad tracking.

Tyson Brody, a campaign spokesman, said that “not once” did Marshall dispute Meischa’s story “that his lawyers had him arrested in front of his children.”

“The lies in his letter are blatant and smack of desperation,” Brody said. “The truth is what Roger Marshall did was extreme and hurt Kansans. Voters should know the truth about who their senator is and what he did.”

Marshall said in an Instagram post: “This ad is a complete lie and several organizations have called for the ad to be removed from television. »

Samantha Cantrell, regional press secretary for the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, issued a statement calling the ad “a blockbuster piece manufactured by Hamilton and national Democrats” and called for it to be removed.

“Adam Hamilton knows that a Democrat hasn’t won a Senate seat in Kansas in almost 100 years, which is why he is deliberately lying about Roger Marshall to mislead voters,” Cantrell said.

The cease-and-desist letter is the latest friction in an increasingly contentious U.S. Senate campaign between the former OB-GYN and the Kansas City-area pastor. What once appeared to national forecasters as a sure Republican victory has edged closer to toss-up territory as Hamilton has raised money and campaigned across the state since winning a crowded Democratic primary in August.

Hamilton presented himself as the middle candidate, trying to appeal to moderate Republicans and Democrats and undecided voters, while Marshall focused on his relationship with President Donald Trump’s base.

The two men faced a mostly pro-Hamilton crowd in a fair debate earlier this month and are scheduled to return to the stage together Oct. 21 on FOX4 in a debate moderated by John Holt.