Trump.dating — the new dating site courting “Make America Great Again” supporters — couldn’t have picked a worse model for its featured image.
On the site’s splash page, users are greeted by the smiling face of William Barrett Riddleberger, who it turns out is a convicted sex offender, as several local news outlets reported. Riddleberger was convicted in 1995 for filming himself having sex with a 15-year-old girl while he was in his mid-2os. His conviction is listed on public records.
Riddeberger’s picture, along with his wife Jodi’s, have since been removed from Trump.dating’s welcome page. The conservative-friendly site — which caused an uproar on Monday for only allowing straight men or women to sign up for the service– didn’t immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
The Riddlebergers acknowledged the conviction in 2011 when family friend Jeff Hyde was running for political office in North Carolina. Jodi referenced the “incident” on Facebook because she was “convinced that Greensboro City Councilwoman (now mayor) Nancy Vaughan had unearthed Barrett’s conviction and passed it on to ‘GOP establishment friends’ so they could leak it to the media and torpedo Hyde’s candidacy,” as the Triad City Beat reported.
William Barrett Riddleberger sounds like he’s moved on from his conviction, however, saying he “already paid (his) debt” to society, although he never served time in prison.