A Republican who last week announced that he is running for U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb’s seat next year is on probation in North Carolina for fraudulently taking money from farmers to start a cooperative.

Brian Thomsen, a 46-year-old Ingram resident, is also not registered to vote in Pennsylvania.

Thomsen said the criminal charges he pleaded no contest to were personally and politically driven. He admitted to commingling cooperative funds and his personal finances while he tried to keep both the business and his family afloat.

“I was trying to take care of these farmers,” Thomsen told The Times on Saturday. “I was doing everything I could to put myself on the line and try and take care of other people.”

Thomsen’s candidacy in the Republican primary for the 17th Congressional District, which includes Beaver County, part of Cranberry Township and a large portion of Allegheny County, was first reported Wednesday by the far-right website Breitbart.com.

A statement sent Friday to The Times by a campaign spokesman described Thomsen as a “conservative Republican,” business consultant and former member of the Army’s Special Forces.

However, a Google search by The Times uncovered Thomsen’s criminal record in North Carolina, where he was placed on 24 months of probation on Dec. 3, 2018, after pleading to multiple charges of larceny and cheat-property/services in Chatham County District Court, according to online records.

The Chatham County sheriff’s office charged Thomsen with 12 counts of felony embezzlement in July 2018 after farmers reported giving him money for the All-American Agriculture Association cooperative that he instead used for his own purposes.

On Saturday, Thomsen said he first plowed $65,000 of his own money into trying to bring a bankrupt poultry complex back to life, but that project failed and he set his sights on starting a cooperative.

Thomsen said he began collecting membership dues of $500 and ultimately got 50 members. The cooperative offered members an insurance package covering health and livestock, and offered farmers discounts on equipment and supplies, he said.

Problems, though, quickly arose between Thomsen and the board of directors. “We started to have disagreements on what we would do next,” he said.

Those problems coincided with him having a “mental breakdown” in late 2016, Thomsen said. “I spent that Christmas with a gun in my mouth so that was a pretty rough time for me,” he said.

In early 2017, the cooperative was dissolved, but Thomsen said he did not know of any issues until he returned from an overseas job assignment in June 2018. He then learned that there were complaints about him, the first coming from a county commissioner with ties to local law enforcement and courts.

In July 2018, Thomsen was charged with taking $500 apiece from 13 people, who, he said, were all from Chatham County even though he had solicited funds from farmers in several counties.

“It feels to me that it was politically motivated because it was only the people in that county that was brought together,” Thomsen said.

Thomsen said he retained an attorney who eventually advised him to plead no contest to reduced misdemeanor charges. “I didn’t want to jeopardize my livelihood by going to a jury trial and taking that risk,” said Thomsen, who was still serving in the National Guard at that point.

“The option given to me was the option that I took,” he said.

Asked why voters should support someone for Congress who is on probation, Thomsen said he sloppily commingled money, but had no intentions of defrauding the farmers.

Thomsen also said he was trying to help farmers who had been hurt by a Russian businessman who closed the poultry complex. “It’s in my nature to be self-sacrificing and to put myself out there,” Thomsen said.

Seventeenth District voters are looking for someone to fight for them, Thomsen said, and he would tell them that he has learned valuable lessons from his criminal case as well as from his business and military background.

“If I get a chance to, I will fight tooth and nail for these people,” he said.

Thomsen said he moved to Ingram in June after coming to western Pennsylvania for business and he has “fallen in love with it.” He continues to work with clients through his Guerilla Strategies business.

As for not being registered to vote in the district he’s trying to represent in the House, Thomsen admitted that he should have by now, but he has been busy moving his family and business from North Carolina while also continuing to work.

Cranberry Republican Scott Timko announced his candidacy in the 17th District two months ago. Timko is an Air Force veteran, commercial pilot and small business owner.

Lamb, D-17, Mount Lebanon, is up for re-election for another two-year term in 2020. He easily defeated then-Republican U.S. Rep. Keith Rothfus in November 2018.