‘Knowing that it’s a lie now, I just feel terrible,’ says actress from anti-Whipple ad
A young Wichita woman says she feels she was misled into making a false campaign ad targeting Wichita mayoral candidate Brandon Whipple — an ad she says was produced by a young video entrepreneur who The Eagle has learned shares an office with a Wichita City Council member and a Republican state legislator.
The college-age actress said she was paid $50 to read a script of allegations that was later cut together into an anti-Whipple campaign commercial posted on YouTube and Facebook.
“Oh my gosh, knowing that it’s a lie now, I just feel terrible,” the actress told The Eagle. “All I want to do is like hug the people that I’ve tarred in the whole thing and just apologize, because I had no idea. This dude (Whipple) has a family, he has kids and a wife and he doesn’t need all that stuff, so I feel terrible, basically.”
A lawsuit seeking damages as a result of the ad was filed on Whipple’s behalf in Sedgwick County District Court on Tuesday.
The woman said the video shoot was produced by Matthew Colborn, 21-year-old CEO of Colborn Media.
Colborn works out of a downtown Wichita office he shares with City Council member James Clendenin and state Rep. Michael Capps, R-Wichita.
Conspiracy alleged
On Tuesday, Whipple’s lawyer, Randy Rathbun, filed a slander lawsuit alleging a conspiracy between Colborn and supporters of incumbent Mayor Jeff Longwell identified as “John Doe #1” and “John Doe #2” who funded and coordinated the attack ad.
“The defendants apparently believe that they can influence an election by posting horribly false and defamatory statements about the plaintiff,” the lawsuit said.
Longwell could not be reached for comment Tuesday. He has previously said he had no prior knowledge of the video.
Allegations in the lawsuit closely parallel the experience that the young actress related to an Eagle reporter last week.
“Colborn hired several young women who he paid $50 each through CashApp to pose in a hit piece as young girls who had been sexually harassed by the plaintiff,” the lawsuit says. “The girls went to a South Broadway address and were told they were producing a Public Service Announcement against domestic violence.”
A shell corporation
The campaign is being bankrolled through a limited liability company registered in New Mexico. That LLC was created Oct. 10 to launch the political attack from behind the shield of New Mexico law, which doesn’t require owners of closely held companies to identify themselves.
Mark Skoglund, executive director of the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission, said the language used in the ad doesn’t fit the state’s strict definition of “expressly advocating” for or against a candidate.
Although the ad urges voters to “Stop Brandon Whipple,” state law requiring disclosure of the source of the funding would have been triggered only if they had used the words “vote against” or “defeat,” he said in an email.
The ad used allegations and quotations from a 2017 story in the Kansas City Star and the Wichita Eagle, in which college-age female legislative interns complained about lewd comments and sexual harassment at the Statehouse.
However, Whipple was not the subject of the allegations in the news report, which were actually complaints the interns made against Republican members of the Kansas Senate. Whipple is a Democrat and a member of the state House of Representatives.
Actress breaks silence
The actress, whom The Eagle has agreed not to identify to protect her career, said she had worked with Colborn on previous commercials for local businesses.
“He (Colborn) told me that he would like me to do this ad, for like a political ad,” the actress said. “I asked him to be a little bit more specific and he said that this is an ad against domestic violence.
“And I was like, ‘Oh, that’s cool,’ because it kind of goes along with something I’m very passionate about and is part of my own platform. So I said ‘OK, sure, let’s do it.’ But he was pretty vague other than that.”
She said when she read the script, she didn’t know who Whipple was. “I’m not really sure who I was talking about,” she said.
She said she read through the entire script of the ad and that clips were spliced together later to make it look like several young women were making different complaints about Whipple.
Mom solves mystery
The actress said she didn’t know her voice and silhouette were on YouTube and Facebook until a conversation with her mother.
“We were driving together and we often talk politics,” the mother said. “She’s not one to pay attention to local politics as much as national. I was telling her about the (Wichita) mayoral race and I was telling her that this awful, weird ad had come out and that I was really worried about who might have been behind it.”
The mother said that as she described the video, her daughter said, “Mom, I think that’s that domestic violence thing that I did.’ . . . I was very shocked and her immediate reaction was ‘Oh my God, am I going to get in trouble?’ I told her ‘No, this was a job you were hired to do.’”
The actress, who is in her 20s, said she’s sorry she ever got involved with the ad and has learned a lesson.
“Now, after this experience, I’m going to be really specific with everything and make sure I know what I’m doing and what it’s for,” she said.
Officials share office
The actress told The Eagle the video was filmed in an “abandoned-looking building” south of English on Broadway in downtown Wichita and provided an address.
When reporters from The Eagle went there, Colborn was working in the office of VR Business Brokers of the Heartland, 300 S. Broadway.
That business, listed as Midwest Business Group LLC in state business filings, is owned by Capps and Clendenin.
Clendenin confirmed that 300 S. Broadway is the building where his office is. He said he has tried to stay out of the mayoral race entirely and denied having any knowledge of the video or its origins.
“That seems awful out of character for Matt,” Clendenin said of the video.
“Nothing like that happened while I was around,” he said. “Of course, I haven’t been around very much, either. . . . I was in the office today for probably 30 minutes to an hour. I didn’t even talk to anybody but in passing.”
Colborn is working as Capps’ campaign manager, Clendenin said. That’s how they met, Clendenin said.
Capps and Colborn were connected last spring through a Wichita State University program that partners start-up businesses with “a select group of Wichita’s most successful entrepreneurs” to help network and launch successful businesses.
The WSU program, LaunchPrep, partnered Colborn with Capps, who mentored him for three months to get his production business off the ground.
Thursday morning the top photograph on Colborn’s public Facebook page was of him and Clendenin posing between two wooden statues of American Indians at a charity cigar-smoking event.
After reporters asked Colborn about the Whipple video, the photo was removed from his public profile.
Clendenin said he didn’t know why the photo was removed.
“I’ll ask him about it,” Clendenin said. “I’ll ask him if he’s embarrassed to be seen with me.”
At Clendenin’s and Capps’ office Thursday, Eagle reporters asked Colborn if he made the video.
“Who told you that?” Colborn asked.
When he was told it was one of the actors in the video, he said, “That’s interesting.”
Colborn did not deny producing the video and would not answer further questions, saying he had a client meeting. He asked The Eagle reporters to send him an email to set up a meeting.
He did not respond to The Eagle’s email and was not at the office Friday or Tuesday morning.
Capps did not return The Eagle’s phone calls.
BEHIND THE STORY
MOREHow we did this story
Wichita Eagle reporters began researching the origins of the “Protect Wichita Girls and Stop Brandon Whipple” video as soon as it was released, tracking it to a shell limited liability company in New Mexico. The Eagle last week spoke to a woman who said she was in the video. The woman, who asked not to be named to protect her acting career, named Matthew Colborn as the organizer of the video shoot and said he misled her into believing the video was an ad against domestic violence, not a Wichita mayoral candidate. Reporters began digging deeper. (Click the arrow in the upper right-hand corner for more background)
How did we find out about Colborn's associations?
The woman who said she was in the video said it was recorded at an “abandoned-looking building” on South Broadway. Eagle reporters went to the building and found Matthew Colborn, the alleged producer of the video, inside. Reporters asked whether he was involved with the video, but he said he had a client meeting and did not have time for an interview. His desk is in an office shared with VR Business Brokers of the Heartland. That business is owned by an LLC called Midwest Business Group.
Midwest Business Group is owned by state Rep. Michael Capps and City Council member James Clendenin, according to the Secretary of State’s business filings. Clendenin said he had no knowledge of or involvement with the video. Capps, who confirmed that Colborn works out of the office, did not return later phone calls from The Eagle.
What's the deal with the Facebook photo?
Before Wichita Eagle reporters approached Matthew Colborn for an interview, they checked his public Facebook page. The most recent photo on his page at the time was of him and City Council member James Clendenin standing between two wooden Indians at a cigar-themed fundraiser. After The Eagle asked Colborn about his involvement in the video, the photo disappeared from his page. The Eagle did not mention Clendenin to Colborn before the photo was removed. Clendenin said he didn’t know why the photo was removed.
This story was originally published October 29, 2019 at 2:46 PM.
