• Stole a box of Band-Aids from his grandmother’s medicine cabinet when he was 4 yrs old because they were “fun to play with”; duly punished by his father with full restitution made to the victim, Grannie.
• Picked up a couple of speeding tickets – Paid the fines online (Nobody’s perfect).
• Graduated first in class from each of three paramilitary academies, separated by a span of twenty years.
• Graduated college and attended graduate school; started a family; bought and sold a few houses (never had a white picket fence).
• Held an active TS//SCI Security Clearance for 20+ years uninterrupted.
• Served as a Federal Officer with the United States Secret Service, with assignments to the Presidential Protective Division and the Dignitary Protective Division while protecting President George W. Bush and presidential candidates John Kerry, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama.
• Served as a contract Intelligence Officer and Targeting Officer within the CIA’s National Clandestine Service; volunteered for hazardous duty assignment in Afghanistan and served in Kabul and Bagram.
• Served as the founding member and original Director of a specialized unit operating out of U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, supporting that mission for over a decade.
• Transitioned to life as a small-town cop, receiving the Director’s Award for Academic Excellence (2022), receiving the Sheriff’s Meritorious Action Award (2023), and being named Purcellville Police Officer of the Year (2024).
• Elected to Purcellville Town Council November 2024.

And then…

• Framed
• Brady Listed
• Fired
• Decertified
• EXONERATED!
• Indicted

…All within months of being sworn in to office and appointed Vice Mayor, after campaigning on a public pledge to streamline and reform local government (to include the Police Department), reduce utility costs, stabilize property taxes, and put a stop to the planned rapid growth of Purcellville via annexations for commercial and industrial development.

THE BATTLE OF PURCELLVILLE

This saga, like most involving political corruption and the weaponization of the criminal justice apparatus, is about power and money. My political opponents, within and without Town government, are motivated to overturn the most recent Town of Purcellville election by any and all means necessary in order to open the floodgates for annexations into the Town of Purcellville for commercial and industrial development, accessing the Town’s wastewater facility and already strained water resources.

I have been further targeted due to my efforts to streamline local government, to include position eliminations and restructuring of various departments. My public platform throughout the 2024 campaign, along with my allied slate of candidates, further included our pledge to stabilize property taxes and reverse the trend of rising utility rates.

As a Town employee and Town police officer, I had unique insight into the inner workings of Town government. I openly questioned why the Town employed a Town Manager, an Assistant Town Manager, and a Director of Administration for a population of roughly 9,000 people. I questioned why Finance Department staffing levels remained unchanged after the County assumed responsibility for the collection of all real and personal property taxes on behalf of the Town. I questioned why there were “Director” positions overseeing one or just a few direct reports. My research indicated that the Town’s Information Technology needs could be outsourced for one-third the current cost to residents.

Within the police department, specifically, I questioned the organizational hierarchy of four, uniformed, six-figure-salary administrators who contributed little to patrol, investigations, or traffic enforcement. Meanwhile, an underpaid Officer corps resulted in high rates of attrition and a corresponding inability to provide consistent 24/7 coverage to the Town’s residents and businesses, relying more and more on the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office. I also took note, privately, of loose inventory controls within the police department, to include suspected thefts of department property. Once elected, I advocated for a yet-to-be-conducted forensic audit and inventory accounting of the police department.

These were my motivations.

I underestimated the  coming fight over the development of Purcellville and Western Loudoun County, apparently with hundreds of millions of developer and land speculator dollars at stake, and the true significance of the balance of power within the Purcellville Town Council. I was further unaware of the deep interconnectedness of political players and the lengths to which they would go, outside the law, aided and abetted by opportunistic law enforcement personnel, to attack me from within the police department and overturn the election results.

These people have tried to destroy me – reputationally, politically, financially – over minor political disagreements. They have brought tremendous pain to my family, to include my precious children. They have tried every conceivable line of attack, to include labeling me a “Trumptard” and, alternatively, a “Libtard,” depending on their target audience - all part of their effort to distract from the  irrefutable evidence of their criminal conspiracy, which I have outlined for the FBI and for which I am requesting a formal civil rights investigation by the Department of Justice.

I am an American, loyal to the Constitution I swore an oath to defend, against all enemies, foreign and domestic. My opponents counted on me caving under the weight of their unprecedented campaign of lies and lawfare.  Were I  to surrender, I would not only be a coward and a weakling, but my surrender would further encourage and legitimize their behavior, threating our democratic system at every level of government throughout the nation.

I will never surrender to bullies. The truth is on my side, and I ask you to stand with me.

-Ben

"The Battle of Purcellville" video series provides the most complete and full accounting of what is happening in Purcellville, and why.