How a campaign sign dispute between Wilmington candidates ended with police actions

Why Should Delaware Care?
Delaware’s elections are approaching, and the winners could determine the balance of power in the legislature that forms policy for residents across the state. The race for Wilmington’s Third House District has been unusually turbulent after the incumbent Rep. Josue Ortega was recently charged with misdemeanor assault. Now a trespassing complaint tied to another candidate’s campaign sign has added to the turmoil.

With less than a month until Delaware’s primary election, two Democrats vying to represent Wilmington’s Hilltop neighborhood in the legislature are feuding after one called the police on the other for placing his campaign sign in her front yard.

The candidate, Branden Fletcher-Dominguez, said he did not know that his political opponent,  LaDonna Graham, lived at the Hilltop townhouse when he placed the sign. Instead, the property owner had asked him for a yard sign there, he said. 

Fletcher-Dominguez shared with Spotlight Delaware a text message thread showing the property owner, Sultan Taskin, asking him to drop the sign off. 

The bottom of the thread shows a final message from Fletcher-Dominguez that appears to say, “I hope the tenant won’t move it.” 

Graham says Fletcher-Dominguez knew she was living in the home when he placed the campaign sign there, because she had seen him campaigning in the neighborhood before. 

“I’ve seen him canvas. I’ve sat on my porch. I’ve seen him canvas across the street,” Graham said.

The dispute is flaring just as the Democratic primary in the 3rd Representative District approaches, where Graham and Fletcher-Dominguez are among four candidates seeking the seat. The others are incumbent Rep. Josue Ortega and Wilmington City Councilwoman Yolanda McCoy.

And what began as an initial grievance over a campaign sign has since involved multiple police interactions and competing accounts from Graham, Fletcher-Dominguez and the property’s owner.

While some details are disputed, what is known is that on Aug. 1, Graham filed a police report against Fletcher-Dominguez, alleging trespassing after he placed his campaign sign at her residence the day before. 

She followed up with officers a few days after the police report. It was then, she said, that police officers told her that a no-contact order would be put into place. 

Graham again called the police a week later, she said, after Fletcher-Dominguez went back to her home to retrieve the sign from her porch. That same day, Fletcher-Dominguez said police stopped him while he was canvassing in the area and asked him whether a no-contact order existed that would prevent him from interacting with Graham. 

He told them no such order existed. Police then ran his information and let him go, he said. 

Staff at the New Castle County Court told Spotlight Delaware on Thursday that no records are on file showing a no-contact order in place between the two individuals.

Days after he was initially approached by officers, Fletcher-Dominguez said police came to his house to ask whether he had been on Broom Street, where Graham lives. 

“And I was like, ‘Yes, I’m everywhere. I knock doors everywhere. I’m a community organizer. I knock on doors. Like why is this continuing to be an issue?’” he recounted.  

Wilmington Police officials confirmed that officers were called to Graham’s neighborhood on Aug. 1 in reference to a complaint regarding a male subject placing a campaign sign on a residential property without the occupant’s permission.  

Police officers ultimately “determined that he had secured permission from the property owner to place the sign there,” David Karas, the chief administrative officer for WPD, told Spotlight Delaware on Wednesday. 

Karas said officers determined no further police action was necessary at the time.  

Fletcher-Dominguez disputes allegations

Fletcher-Dominguez said he was asked to place his campaign sign at the Broom Street townhouse by Taskin, a woman with whom Graham had a rental agreement.

He also noted that residents regularly ask him to drop off campaign signs to put up outside their residences. Fletcher-Dominguez said he assumed Taskin lived at the house after she asked him to place the sign.

When asked about the text message thread from Taskin regarding her tenant, Fletcher-Dominguez said, “At the time I placed the sign, I had not been told directly by the tenant that they objected to it.” 

Fletcher-Dominguez said he did not know Graham lived at the house until after the initial incident when he looked at a voter registration list and saw her listed address. It was then that he decided to retrieve his campaign sign from her porch.

“I respect people’s rights and my focus remains on the issues that matter to District 3 voters, not political drama like this,” Fletcher-Dominguez said. 

For Graham, she says the situation has now caused her to fear campaigning by herself, alleging that supporters of Fletcher-Dominguez have asked her why she made allegations against him. 

Graham says that she will be looking into pursuing additional charges. 

Property dispute 

The dispute has quickly become complicated, with the three parties – Graham, Fletcher-Dominguez, and Taskin offering conflicting accounts not only of what happened but of who had the authority to authorize the sign in the first place.

Taskin, the apparent property owner, told Spotlight Delaware that she currently owns the property and leased it to Graham. But she also noted tensions between her and Graham, as she claimed that Graham has failed to pay rent, to renew her lease, and has prevented her from accessing the home.

Taskin said that she did not know that Graham was running for office before she gave Fletcher-Dominguez permission to place the campaign sign at the residence. 

Months before the campaign sign incident, Taskin and Graham had been engaged in a months-long disagreement over repairs and the lease to the home.

Taskin provided Spotlight Delaware with a copy of an April 2026 deed showing that she and Delaware Affordable Housing Group, a nonprofit under the umbrella of the Wilmington Housing Authority, are listed as co-owners of the property. Taskin took part in a WHA program that allowed her to enter the partnership with the WHA, giving her 80% ownership of the property.   

New Castle County deeds records also lists Taskin’s development company as the current owner.

But officials with the Wilmington Housing Authority and Graham dispute Taskin’s account of the property’s ownership.

Ray Fitzgerald, executive director of the Wilmington Housing Authority, said Taskin is currently removed as an owner after failing to make necessary repairs to the property. 

Graham also denies Taskin’s allegations, saying WHA officials told Taskin to stop contacting Graham and asserted that she has an exclusive lease with the WHA’s nonprofit alone. She provided Spotlight with images of a signed lease, initiated in July 1 that lists WHA’s nonprofit as her landlord.

The news also adds another layer to a race that has already drawn attention to Fletcher-Dominguez. In 2024, Fletcher-Dominguez withdrew from the race just days before the primary election. At the time, state investigators had said he didn’t have a permanent residence within the district.

Graham submitted a complaint to Delaware’s Department of Elections, but officials say that currently both candidates, Graham and Fletcher-Dominguez, will remain on the ballot.