ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- A Tampa Bay area businessman says he's under attack for no good reason.
Fliers put up in St. Pete called Chuck Prather a "predator," and he spoke to 10News to clear his name.
The fliers, plastered all over downtown St. Petersburg, say Prather "directly profits from sexual violence, physical abuse and the caging of undocumented people in the greater Tampa community."
“Just 'heart-sinking' was a perfect word for it,” Prather said about the moment he discovered the fliers were put up Tuesday night.
Surveillance video captured two people posting one of the fliers in front of The Birchwood, the popular hotel, restaurant and bar he owns.
However, that building isn't even the one at issue. A building he owns in Tampa is.
The flier calls out Prather for renting it out to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and calls for a boycott of his businesses.
“You work so hard for your reputation and raised a family in this town, and the last thing I needed was a false accusation that there wasn't a thread of truth to it,” Prather explained.
Last month, demonstrators camped out in front of the ICE building in Tampa, calling for the agency to be abolished. Tampa Police arrested some of them for vandalism and trespassing. Prather suspects the people behind that protest are also behind the fliers.
“When you slander someone's name in a community and try to ruin a business, it's wrong, and people need to be held accountable for that,” he said.
Prather added that he supports their right to protest, but he said, as the landlord, he’s just a third party and shouldn’t be involved.
He’s reached out to the St. Petersburg Police Department. They say they’re looking into who put up the fliers and also trying to figure out if they even committed a crime by doing so.
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