DV Journal

After the Delaware Valley Journal broke the story about state Sen. Jimmy Dillon’s basketball academy Twitter account harboring posts with the “N” word, an LGBTQ insult and insults against Asians, Dillon blamed the offending posts on his players.

“As a coach, I work with kids to teach them how to play basketball and learn skills both on and off the court. I’m not a big social media guy. If basketball players who work with Hoops 24-7 posted something like this more than a decade ago, it’s the first I’ve heard about it,” Dillon said in a statement to DVJournal.

Nobody disputes that the Twitter account, @Hoops24_7, belongs to the basketball academy the Philadelphia Democrat founded. And the account is full of posts featuring references to @senjimmydillon and political activities engaged in by Dillon.

What Dillon and his campaign dispute is the claim that he posted the specific posts with the offensive language.

However, Michael Straw, communications director for the Pennsylvania Senate Republican Campaign Committee, pointed to other tweets that appear to show Dillon controlled the account at that time.

“He’s posted numerous tweets in the first-person on this account and retweeted official and campaign content as well,” said Straw. “This is classic Senator Jimmy Dillon, running away from the problem and not wanting to be held accountable. Just like when the arrest warrant was uncovered, he ran away from it for 20 years.”

Also notable: When DVJournal contacted the campaign for a response late Monday night, the offensive posts were quickly deleted.

Dillon’s campaign dismissed the story as a “phony MAGA Republican distraction,” said spokesman Mark Nevins.

“They’re taking decades-old tweets someone else wrote and waving them around like a bunch of maniacs. Meanwhile, they’re hoping we’re too dumb to notice that, at the same time, they’re trying to rip away women’s reproductive rights, prevent access to IVF treatments, and block commonsense gun violence legislation.

“Sorry, weirdos.  It’s not happening,” said Nevins.

Dillon’s Republican opponent, Joe Picozzi — an Eagle Scout who was appointed by City Councilman Brian O’Neill to serve on the Philadelphia Youth Commission — declined to comment on the unsavory tweets.

“My focus is on delivering real change for the people of Northeast Philadelphia. Crime’s going out of control. People can’t afford to pay for their groceries. My focus is on delivering results for the people here,” Picozzi told DVJournal.

Albert Eisenberg a political consultant from Philadelphia with BlueStateRed, called the Twitter posts on Dillon’s account “appalling,” “bizarre,” and “disqualifying.”

“If Democrats have any consistency, they would revoke their endorsements of this guy that’s been spewing slurs and deleted them after being contacted. So, clearly, it was him,” said Eisenberg.

Pennsylvania House Speaker Joanne McClinton declined to comment about the Dillon revelations. Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-Philadelphia), a candidate for state auditor general, did not respond when asked to comment, nor did Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa (D-Allegheny). The Philadelphia branch of the NAACP did not respond to a request for comment.

Brittany Crampsie, spokesperson for the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee, said, “Senator Dillon’s record speaks for itself. At every opportunity, he has been a strong advocate and a consistent vote in support of Black and LGBTQ Pennsylvanians. He has nurtured and trained young people from all backgrounds his entire career. Distasteful tweets from more than a decade ago written by someone else don’t change that.”

Dillon became a state Senator in 2022. He won a special election after the sitting Democratic senator was appointed to the bench. Dillon’s brother, Shawn, was going to fill the vacancy but was bumped from the ballot after he failed to file documents required under the state’s ethics laws.  Party insiders then chose Dillon to replace his brother.

This is not Dillon’s first controversy of the campaign. Previously, the DVJournal reported that Dillon had an outstanding warrant from New Jersey due to unpaid traffic ticket fines and failure to appear in court.

A Bucks County employee already embroiled in controversy over his partisan politics is now in hot water over a profane tweet targeting Republicans in Congress.

Eric Nagy is director of policy and communications for Bucks County. His background is working as a Democratic political operative. And it showed when, amid the GOP’s battle to pick a new Speaker of the House, Nagy tweeted, “House Republicans simply can’t decide which sniveling little s**t they want to get behind, but they are determined to keep trying.”

Asked about the propriety of Nagy’s tweet, James O’Malley, a spokesperson for Bucks County, said, “You’re asking about a personnel matter, and the county does not comment on personnel matters. Accordingly, the county does not have a comment, except to say that it’s been handled internally.”

Nagy is a longtime party functionary who has served as a Democratic committeeman. He has a long history of working on Democratic campaigns, including those of Bucks County Commissioners Diane Ellis-Marseglia and Chair Bob Havie. He joined county government after the Democrats took control in 2019.

According to his LinkedIn page, Nagy’s specialties are political organization and campaign management, not public health or county government.

Now he is at the center of an ongoing scandal over Bucks County’s refusal to release documents that might confirm the county’s COVID-19 policy was issued not by county Health Director Dr. David Damsker but by Nagy.

Damsker proposed more parent-friendly, less-restrictive guidelines for the county’s schools. But his recommendations were overridden, replaced with stricter state guidelines for masking, quarantines, and vaccinations. Data indicate the new guidelines came from Nagy. Bucks County is still in court fighting open records requests for more information about this case.

Bucks County GOP Chair Pat Poprik said she isn’t surprised by Nagy’s nasty comments.

“Since the day he was hired, we have said this was a political operative, and here is proof. At 3:37 p.m. on a work day, he’s making very partisan comments, hardly governmental. He’s a political operative given a cushy government job he’s not qualified for. He has time to comment during the work day. How inappropriate.”

Kim Bedillion, president of the Pennridge Area Republican Club, agreed.

“While Mr. Nagy is free to express his personal opinion on his own time, even a distastefully worded one such as this, I am concerned that he did so on the taxpayer’s dime,” said Bedillion. “The timing of the tweet suggests that he made it while in the course and scope of his employment as Bucks County’s director of policy and communications. One would hope that his bosses, Bucks County commissioners Diane Ellis-Marseglia and Bob Harvie, would hold him accountable if he did so. However, given that Mr. Nagy served as campaign manager for the Democratic commissioners, Ms. Ellis-Marseglia and Mr. Harvie, and appears to have been awarded his current position as a political favor, that does not seem likely.”

Despite being in the public information business, Nagy did not respond to a request for comment.

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