By BRIAN SLODYSKO and AARON KESSLER (Associated Press)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans see Ohio as a great opportunity to gain a crucial Senate seat.
However, before the primary election on Tuesday, there is increasing worry within the GOP that Bernie Moreno may win the nomination. After gaining a significant endorsement from Donald Trump, Moreno, who has shifted from supporting LGBTQ rights to being a strong opponent, is facing questions about a 2008 profile looking for “Men for 1-on-1 sex” on an adult website called Adult Friend Finder.
A caption on a photo-less profile under the username “nardo19672” reads: “Hi, looking for young guys to have fun with while traveling,” according to records from a well-known data breach of the website. Records also show the profile was last accessed about six hours after it was created.
The review confirmed that someone with access to Moreno’s email account created the profile, but it could not definitively confirm whether it was created by Moreno himself. Questions about the profile have been circulating in GOP circles for the past month. Two days after the AP first asked Moreno’s campaign about the account, the candidate’s lawyer stated that a former intern created the account as a prank. The intern, Dan Ricci, said he created the account as “part of a juvenile prank.”
“I am thoroughly embarrassed by an aborted prank I pulled on my friend, and former boss, Bernie Moreno, nearly two decades ago,” Ricci said. The AP could not independently confirm Ricci’s statement and he didn’t immediately respond to messages left for him on multiple phone numbers listed to him. He donated $6,599 to Moreno’s campaign last year, according to campaign finance records.
Moreno’s lawyer, Charles Harder, stated that Moreno “had nothing to do with the AFF account.”
Once a key swing state, Ohio has moved sharply to the right in recent years. Trump won the state easily in 2016 and 2020, and the GOP controls top statewide offices along with both chambers of the legislature. This has raised hopes among Republicans that Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown will struggle to overcome the challenges that have largely removed his party from power in Ohio.
With Republicans just one seat short of a Senate majority if they also win the presidency, the results in Ohio could have significant effects on the balance of power in Washington.
The situation has increased the stakes for Trump, who chose to support Moreno in a crowded field that includes Secretary of State Frank LaRose and state Sen. Matt Dolan. Trump is set to appear alongside Moreno on Saturday at a rally in Dayton, Ohio.
GOP frustration
Moreno’s potential vulnerability has led to frustration among senior Republican operatives and elected officials in Washington and Ohio, according to seven people who are directly familiar with conversations about how to address the matter. The people requested anonymity to avoid running afoul of Trump and his allies. They described concerns surrounding Moreno’s candidacy as so acute that some party officials sought a review of data to determine his potential involvement.
According to someone who knows about the situation, the review connected the profile to Moreno’s work email.
An independent review by the AP came to the same conclusion. The AP got data from the Adult Friend Finder leak and public information on the company’s website. Analyzing that information revealed that the profile was made and verified by someone who could access Moreno’s work email.
Apart from the work email, the profile has Moreno’s correct birthday, and geolocation data shows that it was set up in a part of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where Moreno’s parents owned a home at that time. The username — nardo19672 — seems to refer to Moreno’s full first name, Bernardo, and the year and month of his birth in February 1967.
Jake Williams, a cybersecurity researcher, confirmed independently that Moreno’s work email address was in a copy of the leaked data from Adult Friend Finder. Williams said, “This is a telling example of how this data doesn’t just go away.”
Harder shared a statement from Helder Rosa, a former vice president for Bernie Moreno Companies, that said Ricci worked as an intern in November 2008 and had duties that included checking emails. Rosa has donated $12,400 to Moreno’s two campaigns for Senate, according to campaign finance records. He didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Moreno, 57, was born in Colombia to a rich family before moving to Florida as a child and becoming a U.S. citizen at 18, according to his website. He bought his first car dealership in 2005 and used his money to build a business that included high-end dealerships in multiple states.
Shifting opinions
Before Moreno started expressing anti-LGBTQ views during his political campaigns, he made comments that seemed to show acceptance of homosexuality.
When Cleveland and Akron won the bid to host the 2014 Gay Games, Moreno was a big supporter while his auto dealership company was a financial sponsor, according to an opinion article he wrote for the business publication Crain’s Cleveland Business.
In an opinion piece, Moreno expressed support for the 2014 Gay Games and urged northeast Ohio’s philanthropic community to help make the event successful. He said, “Hosting a complex multi-venue event requires a network of financial supporters and volunteers. It must be a community effort.”
During a Q&A session in 2016 on his company’s YouTube page, Moreno mentioned that his oldest son is gay and credited the TV show “Modern Family” with changing perceptions about same-sex marriage.
At the event, Moreno said, “We watched these two guys and, we say: ’You know what? They’re good guys, they’re great people. … They are not this distorted thing that is out there.’ And I think those are the kinds of ways that you can break down stereotypes.”
When posters showed up on the campus of Cleveland State University in October 2017 encouraging gay and transgender students to end their lives, Moreno, who was then chairman of the school’s board of trustees, was the main signer of a letter denouncing the “terrible message” as “an assault on our whole campus.”
As recently as 2020, his businesses were listed as supporters of a law prohibiting discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Ohio. Leaders of Equality Ohio, a major LGBTQ rights group in the state, said Moreno joined the effort backing the legislation after a discussion with the organization’s leadership in 2017 during an event promoting the bill.
But that all seemed to change when Moreno first ran for Senate in 2021 before dropping out of the race early. He started to distance himself from his previous activism, claiming to be unfamiliar with the anti-discrimination legislation, as reported by the Cleveland Plain Dealer at the time.
During his ongoing Senate campaign, Moreno has criticized advocates for LGBTQ rights for promoting a “radical” agenda of “indoctrination.” He is endorsed by Ohio Value Voters, a group that opposes LGBTQ rights, including same-sex marriage. And his campaign’s social media accounts have criticized his opponents, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and State Sen. Matt Dolan, as supporters of a “radical trans agenda.”
A recent TV commercial paid for by Buckeye Values, a pro-Moreno super PAC, overlays a picture of LaRose over a rainbow flag while attacking him as “a champion for trans equality.” The ad mentions LaRose’s past support for a bill — which Moreno’s company previously supported — that would have prohibited discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation.
“Can you trust Frank LaRose?” a narrator asks, while also criticizing LaRose for making supportive statements in the past about Equality Ohio, a prominent gay rights group. Moreno backed the same legislation through his companies.
Donald Trump Jr. later shared the commercial on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, saying “I have no doubt” Ohio voters will elect “the real conservative @berniemoreno over leftwing, pro-trans Frank LaRose.”
Moreno’s changing language on LGBTQ issues “is a real shame,” said Maria Bruno, the public policy director for Equality Ohio, which advocates for LGBTQ rights. ”Anyone who is going to be compromising their value system just to win an election, they lose a lot of credibility.”
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