Sanders Delegate Charged For Selling Drugs To Undercover Cops Steps Down

A delegate for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in Minnesota who allegedly sold drugs to undercover cops earlier this year was forced to step down Sunday, just one day after he was elected to that position.

According to an arrest record surfaced by The Independent Journal, John Dillon Wood Neitge, 23, allegedly sold two hits of acid and two ounces of marijuana to undercover cops in March. When police followed Neitge back to his home, they found more marijuana and 2.3 grams of methamphetamine, according to the arrest record. Neitge was charged with nine felonies for drug sale and possession.

Neitge was chosen as a delegate at the state party meeting on Saturday, where he gave a speech, and was asked to step down on Sunday. Independent Journal received mixed answers when they reached out to see just who asked Neitge to step down.

“John Neitge was asked to step down from his delegate spot by the Sanders campaign and he agreed to do so,” Rachel Boyer, communication director for the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, told the publication. “He is no longer a member of the Minnesota delegation.”

But when The Independent Journal asked Neitge himself, he said the call to have him removed came from someone in the state party.

“I don’t have much to say besides what was communicated to me was that the DFL asked me to withdraw and I did,” Neitge wrote in an email to The Independent Journal. “I was never told it was the Sanders campaign that asked me to withdraw.”

The Sanders campaign did not immediately respond to TPM’s request for comment.

Neitge isn’t the first delegate in the 2016 race to be asked to step down over criminal charges: a Trump delegate In Maryland was dropped in May after he was arrested on child pornography and weapons charges.