HERMISTON — A racist letter that recent Umatilla County commissioner candidate Jonathan Lopez claimed was left anonymously in his mailbox was written by Lopez himself, according to Lopez and Hermiston Police Chief Jason Edmiston.

On Monday, July 6, Edmiston said in an email that Lopez had confessed that he wrote the letter. Edmiston said the case would be forwarded to the Umatilla County District Attorney’s office for review for initiating a false report, a Class A misdemeanor in Oregon.

“From the onset, this alleged incident has been thoroughly investigated,” Edmiston wrote in an email. “Our investigation has shown that Mr. Lopez wrote the letter himself and made false statements to the police and on social media. The end result is a verbal and written admission by Mr. Lopez that the letter was fabricated.”

Lopez had previously posted a photo of a typed letter full of racist, homophobic and misogynist slurs to Facebook, stating that he had received the letter but that he had “no resentment for whomever wrote this.”