RV Times Update: SD3
Here is the most recent update from RV Times on this issue and I hope individuals take the time to read it: https://rv-times.com/2026/05/08/candidate-krause-fires-political-consultant-after-allegations-resurface/?fbclid=IwdGRleARra-5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEe8Fo9sw8bgmaJcoG8\_IOFsziMNTNlH8Td-jGjpH\_sU4BzQVfQk5Y2LptTha0\_aem\_tDtpM7NwzZmeR-OpNa73CA
If you come up across the paywall here is the article:
Title: Campaign volunteers resigned over sex abuse allegations against Krause consultant
Headline: Denise Krause, one of five Democrats hoping to replace state Sen. Jeff Golden, says she won’t stop her campaign and consultant won’t work for her after May 19 primary; Jackson County
Democrats suspend financial support pending satisfactory statement
Story: Two former campaign volunteers for Democratic state Senate candidate Denise Krause are speaking out about recently reported details involving a paid consultant for Krause’s campaign who was previously named in sexual abuse allegations.
An anonymous email regarding decades-old sexual abuse claims connected to campaign consultant Matthew Samp, of South Dakota-based Good Government
Consultants, surfaced Monday morning, the same day as vote-by-mail ballots arrived in mailboxes around Jackson County.
Krause, a retired health executive and Rogue Valley Transportation District board member, is one of five candidates seeking the Democratic nomination to replace state Sen. Jeff Golden, D-Ashland, in the May 19 primary election
(https://www.jacksoncountyor.gov/departments/elections/general\_\_\_primary\_elections/primary\_election\_-\_may\_19,\_2026.php#outer-1929). Golden is retiring from office after his current term ends.
Krause confirmed (https://rv-times.com/2026/05/05/candidate-krause-responds-to-decades-old-sex-abuse-allegations-against-campaign-consultant/) she had worked with Good Government Consultants since her 2024 bid (https://rv-times.com/2024/10/13/krause-sparacino-seek-to-fill-jackson-county-commissioner-seat/) for a Jackson County Board of Commissioners seat. According to campaign contributions listed on the Oregon Secretary of State website (https://secure.sos.state.or.us/orestar/cneSearch.do?
cneSearchButtonName=search&cneSearchFilerCommitteeRsn=57422&cneSearchFilerCommitteeTxt=&cneSearchFilerCommitteeTxtSearchType=C&cneSearchTranStart
U683-QIKN-X82T-7KJG-VZXQ-OCTA-SAYL), payments by Krause’s campaign to Good Government Consultants date back to June 2024, totaling $39,751 in 2024 and $29,225 for her current race for state Senate.
Brad Fuglei
Allegations surrounding Samp date back to 2003, five years after 14-year-old South Dakota teen Brad Fuglei reported sexual abuse by Samp that allegedly
occurred in 1998. Fuglei died by suicide, family members told media in 2003, after reporting the abuse.
The allegations resurfaced in June 2009, resulting in Samp being asked to resign as a member of an administration for the former mayor of Omaha, Nebraska.
Media outlets at the time interviewed Fuglei’s father, who reported that his son and Samp had a two-year sexual relationship after meeting on the internet but
that charges were never filed against Samp because the teen died.
Samp at the time called the allegations “false and untrue” and “only meant to hurt me, my family, and now used to harm mayor-elect Jim Suttle.” Then-
Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning confirmed to the Rogue Valley Times on Monday that he received an additional complaint from a parent of a 16-year-
old boy who said their son received emails from Samp and that the parent believed the two had a sexual relationship.
Additional allegations in 2022, during which the previous allegations resurfaced, connected Samp to an investigation into former South Dakota Attorney
General Jason Ravnsborg, who struck and killed a pedestrian. A police report filed in the aftermath, obtained by the Times, reported Ravnsborg contacted Samp to inform him of the crash, to which Samp texted Ravnsborg, who was ultimately impeached and barred from public service, “Well, at least the guy was a Democrat.”
A news report at the time indicated that Samp previously faced multiple sexual abuse allegations, but the Argus Leader, a Sioux Falls, S.D., daily newspaper, issued a retraction stating, “The number of allegations levied against (Samp) is unclear.”
Attempts by the Times to contact Samp have been unsuccessful; a phone number for Good Government Consultants rings as disconnected.
Two former volunteers
Medford resident Jenai May and Eagle Point resident Aubrey LeVeque said Krause made misleading statements this week regarding Samp’s level of involvement in her campaign. Via written statement this week, Krause said Samp was not her campaign manager but “one of the campaign consultants who work at a full-service campaign consulting company.”
May and LeVeque, who produced emails to the Rogue Valley Times in which Krause refers to Samp as her campaign manager, said they worked directly with Samp before unintentionally discovering information regarding the sexual abuse allegations.
LeVeque, who said she was “impressed by Krause’s progressive values” and “honored to work on her campaign,” said Krause described Samp as a political mastermind. Interactions with Samp via Zoom caused concerns for LeVeque and May, prompting an internet search regarding his qualifications as a consultant but instead yielding details of the sexual abuse allegations.
LeVeque said they worried about the impact the allegations would have on the campaign and alerted Krause immediately in early March. Lack of response prompted the women to resign from the campaign.
“I think we hoped she would do the right thing, which is why we both hung around for a few weeks thinking maybe she’d have a team meeting and say, ‘OK, I’m gonna let go of this guy,’” LeVeque said. “I’m not sure of the rationalization of digging her heels in for a person that I’m not even sure she’s even met in person — he lives in Brazil. … She had this information about Samp since March. We all kept waiting for some kind of response. We felt like, ‘Denise, just fire him!’ That was it.”
May echoed similar frustrations.
“Nothing about how she has reacted since the first time we reached out to her on March 7 has been even close to what I anticipated. It has been something that really confused me strategically and ethically. After wave after wave of disappointment in how this was handled, it made me realize I really was wrong about the person I chose to throw my time and energy into,” she said. “I think she really sees him as her secret weapon,” May said.
May — who said she was dismayed by the timing of the anonymous email but is unsure from where the email originated — said speaking out about Samp was “not about political sabotage but a chance to get in front of it.”
“To me the clearest sign that this wasn’t something meant to take her down is because the solution was too simple. A true smear campaign is so difficult to wiggle out of … but this was simple,” May said.
“I don’t know why she’s choosing to sabotage her own campaign. … Nobody wants to be seen as everyone fighting each other. We want to win in November,” May said. “This wasn’t about whether she could make it in Salem, it was about whether she could win in November.”
May surmised that Krause could feel like she’s unable to part ways with Samp, who May said holds administrative control, and owns the server to Krause’s campaign website and social media.
Krause responds
In a second statement this week, Krause posted to social media voicing frustration that the anonymous emailer and a subsequent anonymous Facebook post were devised to create “a pressure campaign to force me to fire someone I strongly believe has been wrongly accused.”
“I looked further into these allegations and found them to be unsupported and untrue. The original article was retracted, but not before being circulated widely and, thus, eventually picked up now — 25 years later,” Krause wrote.
“If I had any real evidence that this information was true, then I would act decisively to terminate,” Krause said. “But my opponents are weaponizing
unfounded allegations to shift focus from the issues of this campaign and trying to win an election not on merit, but on sensationalism. I’m expected to
succumb to mob rule based on the malicious spread of bad rumors of forwarded emails and Facebook postings that have been picked up and spread by
opposition campaigns.”
Krause told the Times on Thursday that she would part ways with Samp following the May 19 primary and “was not stopping my campaign two weeks before the election, when their involvement ends anyway, based on a pressure campaign waged by the opposition and built on unfounded allegations.”
Jackson County Democrats suspend support
The email in circulation, outlining the allegations against Samp, came from a Gmail account identified as MichelleMallard2026, which has since been deleted.
The email prompted a press release, just moments before Krause made her own statement, by Jackson County Democrats Chair David Sours, who said the
committee had “voted unanimously to suspend action on sending future party funds to the Krause campaign until the committee receives a satisfactory
response from the campaign” regarding the allegations.
Sours on Thursday said discussions were still taking place regarding support of Krause’s campaign and that it was important “to hold accountable candidates
who will represent the Democratic Party. Our donors trust us to make good use of their donations to support primary winners, and to help elect Democrats in
the upcoming general election.”
Sours said the party would rally behind “whoever emerges from the primary, including Denise, who has a lot of strengths as a candidate,” but that failing to address reports of the allegations would have been “unforgivable.” Sours said a determination has not been made in terms of financial support for Krause for the remainder of the primaries.
“If I had not told anybody about what we learned, I could not forgive myself,” he told the Times on Thursday.
“We are one of two major parties that has given lip service for far too long in response to the lives that have been forgotten and those who have been lost to sexual abuse and crimes by political people or powerful people.”