COLUMBUS (WCMH) – A candidate for the Ohio House of Representatives is accusing the husband of her opponent of harassment and intimidation.

Republican Mehek Cooke is trying to unseat Democrat Beth Liston in the 21^st District, covering Worthington and Dublin.

Cooke claims Liston’s husband, Denver Liston, has been sending emails, posting Facebook messages, and making telephone calls demanding Cooke stop airing a campaign commercial that he said falsely accused his wife of wanting to defund police.

Cooke said the messages are harassment, even threatening, so she filed a police complaint.

“I’ve had over 10 messages to me and my team when I asked him to stop,” Cooke said. “This is harassment. I perceived one of his emails to me to be a threat, I asked him to stop repeatedly and he didn’t, so I finally had to file a police report yesterday. You know, I’m not afraid, but we absolutely have to take these threats seriously.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Denver Liston admitted to sending the messages, but denied they were intimidating. He claimed he wanted to stop the campaign commercials because they are false and are putting his family in danger.