This article was republished with permission from WTOP’s news partner InsideNoVa.com. Sign up for InsideNoVa.com’s free email subscription today.
This article was written by WTOP’s news partner InsideNoVa.com and republished with permission. Sign up for InsideNoVa.com’s free email subscription today.
Matt Lowery, the Republican candidate for Prince William commonwealth’s attorney, has raised some eyebrows with past social media activity.
Until recently, Lowery occasionally used a personal, though still public, Twitter account (the site now known as X) to amplify his campaign’s message, retweeting posts from his official candidate account.
But that personal account — which included Lowery’s full name and the handle @dtxblacksheep12 — also publicly followed at least 25 explicitly pornographic accounts on the site. Additionally, Lowery’s official candidate Twitter account publicly liked a post in which a male actor, Jason Luv, describes in graphic detail a recent pornographic shoot he was on.
When contacted by InsideNoVa, Lowery claimed that he never liked the video on his official candidate page. He also said he thought his personal account was shut down and that the people he followed seemed to be “mostly bots.”
“Perhaps what I should do is pull it down, because no, it’s not terribly appropriate, but I also thought this was shut down. If it’s out there, I wouldn’t intentionally have stuff like that out there … That’s just what grows on the Twitter account I think,” Lowery said.
Immediately after InsideNoVa spoke with Lowery in late August, his personal account was shut down, and the like on his official candidate account was removed.
Asked whether he would have office rules about public social media usage if elected, Lowery said it was a good idea.
“I was unaware that that was even something that was out there. I reviewed it with you, and I think the stuff that’s objectionable is bots, and I’ll get that corrected,” he said. “It’s kind of a thing where I would expect that we should monitor that and make some sort of rule that that stuff be kept straight.”
Lowery, a former assistant commonwealth’s attorney, is seeking to oust first-term Democrat Amy Ashworth in this fall’s election. His campaign has been built around returning the prosecutor’s office to its pre-Ashworth days. He contends her office hasn’t been aggressive enough in prosecuting perpetrators, even as the county’s crime rate has increased.
But there are some who say that certain elements of the workplace environment likely won’t return to how they were, even if Lowery is elected. Ashworth replaced Paul Ebert, who retired after more than 50 years in the position.
InsideNoVa spoke with two employees of the commonwealth’s attorney’s office — one of whom came on board under Ashworth but was present for the transition, and another who worked under Ebert, Lowery and Ashworth — who said that magazines such as Playboy and Hustler were kept in plain sight in the office’s handicap-accessible bathroom, which at times was used by crime victims and witnesses. Lowery worked as an assistant commonwealth’s attorney from 2016 to 2019, just before Ashworth took over after winning the office in the fall of 2019.
Although Lowery reported to Ebert, the employees said Lowery was among the top leaders in the office during his time there.
One employee under Ebert recalled an incident in which a victim’s father used the restroom and became upset after seeing the magazines.
“It was a very male-friendly environment, I’ll put it like that,” said the employee, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. “There were three or four guys that basically ran the office,” the employee said, naming Lowery as one of them.
Another employee under Ebert who left prior to the office’s transition to Ashworth said that Lowery was in a “position of power with a few others.”
“[The] magazines, it wasn’t really a secret at all. People knew,” said the employee, who left before Ashworth took over.
None of the employees who spoke to InsideNoVa said the magazines were Lowery’s specifically or that he was the one who brought them.
Asked about the periodicals, Lowery said the only magazine he was aware of was a Maxim that featured a “scantily clad” lady on the cover, but he maintained that it and other magazines were kept in a men’s bathroom that was not accessible to the public. He said he remembered the Maxim being on top of a stack other materials, but that he didn’t know what those included.
“The only magazine I saw that was even remotely like that was there was a Maxim in there at one point, but I don’t think that’s pornographic,” he said. He said he never saw any Playboy or Hustler magazines.
Lowery also said he had never heard of any incidents involving someone becoming upset about anything in the bathroom and that he never raised any issues about the magazines because they weren’t his.
At a recent news conference at the county courthouse, Lowery spoke highly of his time working under Ebert, who endorsed Lowery in May.
Asked about the periodicals, Lowery said the only magazine he was aware of was a Maxim that featured a “scantily clad” lady on the cover, but he maintained that it and other magazines were kept in a men’s bathroom that was not accessible to the public. He said he remembered the Maxim being on top of a stack other materials, but that he didn’t know what those included.
“The only magazine I saw that was even remotely like that was there was a Maxim in there at one point, but I don’t think that’s pornographic,” he said. He said he never saw any Playboy or Hustler magazines.
Lowery also said he had never heard of any incidents involving someone becoming upset about anything in the bathroom and that he never raised any issues about the magazines because they weren’t his.
At a recent news conference at the county courthouse, Lowery spoke highly of his time working under Ebert, who endorsed Lowery in May.
