It’s a running joke that someday someone in the 305 will accuse a politician of child abuse. But stop laughing. Because it happened.
It’s gotten real ugly in the race for 
Florida House seat 118, where candidate Robert Asencio, a recently retired lieutenant with the Miami-Dade Schools Department, has been painted as a no less than an actual child abuser on an anonymous website.
Of course Asencio says these are false attacks and that they are standard for his opponent — former Congressman David Rivera. Rivera says he has nothing to do with the website, but he is the one who brought it up during a short debate Sunday on Al Punto Florida on Univision 23.
Read related story: David Rivera is baaaack — to his roots in state House race
“If you go to www.asenciocriminal.com you can see all the things my challenger has done,” Rivera said. “These are facts.”
Except the anonymos website called The Asencio Files — which claims to expose his “criminal history of child abuse, federal crimes, false police reports and taxpayer abuse” — takes those facts out of context. It centers on an internal affairs complaint against Asencio. It says that he grabbed a student and pulled him “out of his seat by the neck and shirt” on a school bus because the boy was “disrespecting him.”
It also publishes Asencio’s campaign phone number and urges people to call him and “tell him child abusers don’t belong in th
e Florida House of Representatives.”
The website claims to be “paid for, compiled and constructed by former police co-workers of Robert Asencio,” and promises more to come. “This is just the tip of the iceberg.”
There is also an allegation of a car accident during a “joyride” and other unsubstantiated claims — and then a photo of Asencio with a group of drag queens from a popular Fort Lauderdale drag show, which has nothing to do with anything. Except that the website takes issue with Asencio’s post on Facebook: “Great show ‘Ladies’. The family enjoyed it. Equality — in Tallahassee, I will legislate for all.”
“It was a birthday party for my nephew,” Asencio told me Monday. “We took him, la abuela, el abuelo, la familia. It was very tame. They wanted to go. I don’t discriminate.”
Perhaps the most — okay, okay — the only serious allegation is an anonymous complaint to the FBI that Asencio tampered with mailboxes. It is accompanied by a photo that seems to show Asencio placing a flyer from his clip board into a resident’s mailbox, which is against the law (but happens all the time).
Asencio said he hasn’t put any flyers in anybody’s 
mailbox and was just standing there to write something down or something. He says he doesn’t remember the moment because he’s been knocking on doors for almost a year.
Rivera — who won a crowded Republican primary against former Miami-Dade Commissioner Lynda Bell and others in August in his bid to return to Tallahassee — said he was just as surprised as anybody else by the allegations.
“I guess I’m the only candidate for the House running against a child abuser,” Rivera said, being as 
inflammatory as possible. Watch for that term to be thrown around as much as possible during Tuesday’s forum in Kendall.
“I wasn’t there. I don’t know what happened. But it’s certainly physical abuse,” Rivera told Ladra. “He grabbed a kid by the neck and the shirt. You’re not allowed to do that.”
Read related story: David Rivera turns in petitions for state House run
Curiously, however, The Asencio Files does not have the include the case disposition, which means that the complaint was probably unfounded and Asencio was cleared of all charges. After all, this is a complaint coming from a mother of a teenager that probably got rowdy on the bus and had to be disciplined. Who knows what he told her? Who knows how heated she got? I know that Mama Bear instinct. I am that Mama Bear.
And this was in 2003. Asencio continued to work at the department through this year, another 13 years after that for a total of 26 years. He says he doesn’t remember the details, that’s how minimal it was, but he obviously was not suspended or charged with battery. In fact, he later worked in the internal affairs division 
of the school board police, where he may have made the enemies that put the website together.
Plus he has the endorsement of the Dade County PBA.
“These are scurrilous allegations,” Asencio said. “I’ve spent 26 years protecting this community, protecting families.”
Actually, Ladra told him, this is kind of good news. Because if this is all that Rivera’s supporters could find on Asencio in 26 years on the school board police, that’s gotta be some kind of record.
And could Rivera actually be that scared that he will lose to a nobody whose Spanish is admittedly no muy bueno and who has raised one sixth of the campaign warchest? In a district where there are more registered Republicans and where his name recognition hovers between 60 and 70 percent?
Asencio said he wants to focus on the issues, which is principally bringing home more resources from Tallahassee. “People want new leadership.”
‘Child abuser’ allegations in House 118 race ring hollow added by Ladra on
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