UPDATE:

U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp says the person responsible for gathering information for the ad is no longer with campaign.

"This is a horrible mistake that I take complete and total responsibility for," she said in an interview with KFYR Tuseday evening.

Heitkamp says that the campaign did receive permission from majority of the women who signed the ad, but for those who did not, their names shouldn't have been included.

"I'm not sugar coating this, I'm standing here saying that if there is anything that I can do, to some how make it up, or rectify these problems. I think the trauma of people being named when they didn't want to be named that's on me, and I have to atone for what we did."

ORIGINAL:

Senator Heidi Heitkamp’s campaign is in some hot water. This, after a handful of sexual assault victims say their names were used in an ad without their consent. On top of that, names of people who claim they weren't even victims of sexual abuse were also included in that ad. The release of victim’s names have some wondering on Facebook, if this is a violation of Marsy's Law.

This all started with an open letter to Kevin Cramer in several newspapers in an attempt to attack the congressman for comments he made during the confirmation process for Justice Kavanaugh. And that letter also included a list of names of sexual assault victims in North Dakota.

But since that ad, a handful of women have been speaking out on social media. One saying, she is not a victim of sexual abuse nor is she a Heitkamp supporter. And she wants to know why her name was put in that letter. We've blurred out the names to hide the identity of the victims.

But this got some people asking on our Facebook page if this letter is a violation of Marsy's Law, which is an act protecting the legal rights of victims of crime. We talked with a lawyer in Cass County who says Marsy’s Law does not require a victim to invoke their rights. But if they did in fact invoke those rights, this letter would be a violation. But the lawyer we talked with also says, those rights would be waived if they filled out a disclosure form.

We stopped by the Heitkamp office in downtown Fargo to see if these victims did in fact sign some kind of waiver. But a media relations woman with Heitkamp's campaign says they are looking into it and investigating what happened.

We also reached out to a number of the victims on the list who live in the F-M area. All the ones we talked with tell us, they are aware their names are listed and that they fully support what the letter says.

Now, the Heitkamp campaign is blaming it on a campaign worker. But in a statement, Heitkamp says they worked with advocates to help find women who would sign this letter to Kevin Cramer. An anonymous source sent us a screenshot of someone asking people to share their stories of sexual assault on Facebook and send them to Kylie Overson.

Overson has been an active politician in the state of North Dakota and is running for North Dakota Tax Commissioner. We reached out to Overson and other people involved in the filtering process of finding these victims, but have yet to hear back.

Senator Heitkamp made an apology today saying she deeply regrets the mistake and is in the process of personally apologizing to each of the people impacted by this.