The US Virgin Islands Delegate Fight Could Spill Over Into Republican Convention

— -- What began as a routine meeting between U.S. Virgin Islands GOP members last weekend in St. Croix erupted into apparent violence when an elected delegate to the Republican National Convention and a local Republican operative claimed they were each assaulted by the other.

A group that would normally fly under the radar -- the USVI GOP -- has been thrust into the political spotlight, as a slate of nine unbound delegates could ultimately help swing the Republican presidential nomination.

The Virgin Islands, with under 3,000 registered Republicans who are ineligible to vote in the presidential election, will send to Cleveland nine of the at least 136 total “unbound” delegates who are free to vote for anyone they wish on the first ballot.

But since the Islands’ contentious March 10 GOP caucus, competing groups have duked it out in court and on the airwaves over who those delegates will be.

On one side is a slate of delegates lead by veteran Republican strategist John Yob, a Michigan native who recently moved to the Virgin Islands. In his book “Chaos: The Outsider’s Guide to a Contested Republican National Convention,” Yob predicts that activists and politicos at the Republican National Convention “will arrive spoiling for a fight -- a fight to pick the Republican nominee for president, and maybe a fight for the future of the GOP itself.”

On the other side, an alternate slate preferred by the Virgin Islands' Republican Party Chairman John Canegata. In a statement released on Wednesday, USVI GOP Committeewoman and delegate Lilliana Belardo O’Neil wrote that they are “disgusted at the tactics of John Yob” and accused Yob’s allies of “orchestrat[ing] the chaos that Yob has spoke of causing at the Republican National Convention.”

Last Saturday, tensions boiled over when USVI GOP members met at a shooting range owned by Canegata to fill vacancies on one of the party’s committees. At least four of the participants were among those on the Virgin Islands’ competing delegate slates.

Canegata came armed with a pistol and banged on the table with an artillery shell, as if it was his gavel, two participants told ABC News. In audio obtained by ABC News, Canegata is heard saying “Order,” followed by the loud rapping of metal hitting the table. Canegata could not be reached by ABC News for comment, but he told the Virgin Islands Daily News that his weapon was concealed and that he forgot to bring a gavel to the meeting. “My gavel was a casing for an old artillery shell,” he told the newspaper.

Tensions rose when some members accused Canegata of ignoring the party’s voting rules. As the meeting came to a close, chaos erupted. In a video released by the USVI GOP, meeting participants, including elected delegate Gwendolyn Brady, can be seen arguing.

At one point, Brady approached Canegata ally Dennis Lennox, after repeatedly asking him not to film her with his cell phone. Lennox alleges that Brady “physically attacked me -- grabbing my phone and throwing it at my face, lacerating my forehead and causing me to fall backwards and hit my head,” according to his written statement to ABC News. In an audio clip released by the party, a commotion can be heard, followed by a male voice saying, “She took his phone and hit him in the head with it” and later, a male voice is heard saying, “She just assaulted Dennis.”

But Brady’s camp says it was Brady, not Lennox, who was assaulted. “Lennox put a phone in her face, about a foot away, and she pushed it away. Then one of [Canegata’s] people shoved her against the wall,” said Holland Redfield, national committeeman of the USVI GOP. Redfield, who likens Brady to Mother Teresa, claimed she was being bullied and the incident left her crying profusely in the parking lot of the gun range.

In an audio recording obtained by ABC News, a male voice is heard asking, “Why did they throw Gwen on the floor?”

Lennox told ABC News that St. Croix Police are now looking into the incident. Brady could not be reached for comment and former party chairman and committee member Herbert Schoenbohm said she is currently in seclusion.

But the unusual physical scuffle appears likely to give way to an equally intense delegate battle at this summer’s GOP convention.

Canegata, an automatic delegate because of his party position, maintains that a slate of six delegates elected at the party’s caucus should be replaced by alternates because they failed to submit paperwork within five days of the election results being certified.

But Yob, the leader of the slate, argued that the caucus results were not yet official because the party’s dispute subcommittee had not yet ruled on a prior case. (In that other case, an elections supervisor claimed that elected delegates Yob, his wife Erica and their friend Lindsey Eilon were ineligible because they hadn’t lived in the territory for 90 days).

In early April, the party’s dispute committee ruled in Yob’s favor. Last Friday, Yob and the party’s National Committeeman Holland Redfield filed a lawsuit asking the court to forbid Canegata from certifying any delegates other than themselves, the elected delegates.

“It’s important that the party isn’t allowed to certify results that are fraudulent,” Yob told ABC News.

In the end, the Virgin Islands could send both delegate slates to Cleveland, according to election experts, and their infighting could continue on a national stage.

“We’ve seen very intense disputes over delegates in the past,” said former Federal Elections Commission Chairman Michael Toner, “but we’re likely to see more this year.”