Hilo man’s identity stolen to smear vice presidential candidate Tim Walz

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – A Hawaii man says he was disgusted and angry over being embroiled in a viral internet smear against vice presidential candidate Tim Walz.

Russian hackers are accused of stealing Matthew Metro’s identity to falsely accuse Walz of sexual assault.

Matthew Metro was a student at West Mankato High School 27 years ago when Tim Walz taught and coached there, but he said Walz was not his teacher and certainly never sexually assaulted him and is trying to get the bogus story under control.

“I’m disgusted,” Metro told Hawaii News Now. “I feel very, very terrible about the fact that people are trying to manipulate our elections and use innocent people to do it.”

U.S. intelligence officials say it appears Russian hackers took Metro’s name and photo from the high school yearbook and then used someone with a vague resemblance to accuse Walz — then a coach and teacher — of sexual assault .

Before it was removed as fake, the video was viewed more than 5 million times. Washington Post reporter Jon Swaine has tracked down the real Matthew Metro in Hilo.

“There was a guy with this name, but he looked very different, so that got us looking,” Swaine said, adding that the video was clumsy and not a “deep fake” product of artificial intelligence.

The Washington Post story confirmed the fraud using Metro’s courage to make it public.

“I think a lot of people’s instinct would be to go to the ground and not react,” Swaine said.

“Oh no. I was too angry to do that. I was too angry,” Metro said, adding that going public was an easy decision.

Metro, 45, is disabled and unable to work and says that, apart from a barrage of messages from researchers and media outlets, his life has not been affected so far.

“So I hope my name won’t be associated with this in the future, and that’s why I wanted to speak out to the press and get this real story out,” he said.

The fake video was just one of many similar false stories spread about Walz on various platforms. The Russian targets were apparently intended to damage his reputation and disrupt the election, Swaine said.

“Because while some people will believe it, some people will also be a little angry that the election is so clearly rigged and distrust other sources of information.”

Metro says the experience has reaffirmed his plan to support the Harris and Walz ticket because of the lies directed at them and victimizing him.

“The blatant disregard for the fact that I am a person, that they used an image of me,” he said. “I didn’t approve of it and I didn’t want it to be used, so I was a little furious.”

Walz has not commented on the disinformation campaign that briefly gained attention among Trump supporters.

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