Who Is Omar Navarro? Republican Candidate Arrested After Allegedly Stalking, Threatening Ex-Girlfriend

A conservative Republican U.S. House candidate who twice failed in bids to unseat Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., has been arrested on felony charges after allegedly stalking, threatening and attempting to extort money from his ex-girlfriend.

Police arrested Omar Navarro, 30, early Sunday outside the San Francisco apartment of ex-girlfriend DeAnna Lorraine Tesoriero, The Daily Beast reported.

Tesoriero, who is seeking to unseat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, told the publication she called police after she had seen Navarro outside her apartment, then received a text from an unknown number saying, “Bitch, I came to see you.”

Navarro also has been charged with violating a five-year restraining order a court granted Tesoriero after she alleged he had harassed her in text messages for months.

Tesoriero told The Daily Beast Navarro had threatened to give her name to extreme left-wing “antifa” activists, offered her money to marry him and threatened her pets.

Navarro -- a darling of the far right who has received more than $1 million in campaign contributions -- said he had been near Tesoriero’s apartment but denied her allegations.

He told The Daily Beast: “Men in this country get treated unjustly, too. You have to acknowledge that. Just because a woman says something doesn’t mean it’s true.”

He asserted Tesoriero had violated former President Ronald Reagan’s “11th commandment”: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”

Waters defeated Navarro in 2016 and 2018 by more than 50 percentage points. He is running against Waters again in 2020, with big-bucks contributions and backing from well-known conservatives, including former Maricopa County, Ariz., sheriff Joe Arpaio and former Trump adviser Roger Stone.

Navarro, who received a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from the for-profit ITT Technical Institute, which shut down its 130 campuses in 2016, serves as the coordinator for the Unified Small Business Alliance Outreach Program, a business advocacy group outside Los Angeles.

His weekend arrest isn’t his first brush with the law. In 2016, he was sentenced to a day in jail and 18 months’ probation, and ordered to avoid contact with his estranged wife after pleading guilty to putting an illegal tracking device on her car.

Navarro is known for his hard-line stance against illegal immigration and sancutary cities.

While serving as a volunteer traffic commissioner in Torrance, California, Navarro came under fire after a video captured him in the back seat of a car while the driver and another passenger pepper-sprayed sanctuary city advocates at a protest following a Cudahy (California) City Council meeting. Navarro resigned after the commission censured him.

He portrays himself as a Washington outsider, and rails against the influence of “special interests” and gridlock in the divided Congress.

Navarro, an Inglewood, California, native, founded the South Bay Young Republicans and has worked as a car salesman and for Sony, Samsung and Amazon.

He lists among priorities on his campaign website strengthening the U.S. military; lowering taxes; balancing the federal budget; letting parents rely on government funds to pay for private school tuition; restricting abortion rights; and loosening gun-control laws.