Mike Krawitz. | Facebook South Jersey candidate to female journalist: I hope you get raped

A man running for township committee in West Deptford appears to have told a journalist on Facebook he hopes she gets “raped.”

Now the West Deptford GOP claims his account was hacked — on a different social media site.


The journalist in question is Daily Beast reporter Oliva Nuzzi. On Monday, Nuzzi — a New Jersey native — shared a story about Donald Trump and ex-wife Marla Maples.

It drew a response from a user named Mike Krawitz, who Nuzzi said has been harassing her on Facebook for over a year.

“Fuck. You. Olivia,” he wrote. “I. Hope. Somebody. Rapes. You. Today. :)”

A minute later, he wrote “Hope. You. Get. Raped. By. A. Syrian. Refugee. :).”

Krawitz, a frequent candidate, is running on a two-person Republican slate for the all-Democratic West Deptford Township Committee, according to a post on the West Deptford Republican Club’s website that was removed on Monday afternoon.

A call placed to Krawitz’s home was not returned.

"Most reporters, especially female reporters, deal with harassment from grammatically challenged internet trolls,” Nuzzi wrote in a statement to POLITICO New Jersey. “These trolls aren't usually legitimized by their local political parties, which makes this case unusual. That said, I believe in freedom of speech and the democratic process, so it's up to the people of West Deptford and the West Deptford Republican Party to decide if they would like to be represented by a man running on a platform of encouraging the rape of female journalists he stalks online."

Krawitz’s posts are no longer visible on Nuzzi's timeline.

After Nuzzi tweeted the Facebook exchange, the West Deptford GOP put up a short post on its Facebook page.

“The executive board of the WDGOP does not condone any repulsive, threatening, or demeaning rhetoric in any social media form or otherwise,” it read. “We are in the process of contacting Twitter for confirmation that someone hacked his account and posted his facebook thumbnail on the hacked twitter entry.”

Nuzzi responded on Facebook that the local party was “spreading misinformation.”

“This harassment occurred on Facebook, and he has been harassing me for well over a year. His account was not hacked,” she wrote.

Nuzzi posted a screenshot here: http://bit.ly/2cayRK4

UPDATE: In a statement, West Deptford GOP Chairman Bob Waller said the party cannot "find any reasonable reason to believe Mr. Krawitz's account was hacked” and that the party will "do whatever it takes to have him removed from the ballot” if he does not resign.