A volunteer surrogate for U.S. Sen. Jon Husted’s 2026 campaign resigned this week after NBC News asked the senator’s campaign about his 2009 guilty plea in a case involving a 15-year-old.

Andrew Havas, whom Husted’s campaign named a Franklin County campaign chair in December, was one of 112 volunteers the campaign appointed to represent Husted across Ohio’s 88 counties. He also serves as vice chair of the Franklin County Republican Party executive committee.

Amy Natoce, a spokesperson for Husted’s campaign, told NBC News that the senator’s team had been unaware of the case. “Mr. Havas did not disclose his history to the campaign,” Natoce said. “Upon learning the facts, we immediately accepted his resignation as a campaign volunteer.” NBC News reported that Havas did not respond to its requests for comment.

According to court records reviewed by NBC News, Havas pleaded guilty in 2009 in a case involving a 15-year-old in Ohio’s Mahoning County. He was originally charged with sexual misconduct with a minor, and the charge was later reduced to a single misdemeanor assault count, NBC reported. A 2008 criminal complaint accused him of “being reckless” as to the minor’s age. NBC reported that Havas, who was 22 at the time, was sentenced to 90 days in jail and served his sentence in the Mahoning County jail from May to August 2009.

NBC News reported that Havas had represented the Husted campaign at events this year, including a June luncheon in Columbus and a late-June meeting of two suburban Republican clubs, and that he introduced Husted at a December party.

The resignation is not the first time Husted’s campaign has faced scrutiny over the Ohio Republicans it has elevated. As TiffinOhio.net has reported, the campaign’s Sandusky County chair, state Rep. Gary Click (R-Vickery), told an Ohio House committee in 2023 that “young girls” had described to him how painful sex was, during testimony supporting his legislation restricting gender-affirming care for minors. Click, a former Baptist pastor, has never publicly identified who those individuals were, and he has not been accused of a crime.

The campaign also promoted a March 2026 graphic touting endorsements from Ohio House Republicans that included state Rep. Rodney Creech (R-West Alexandria). A minor female relative accused Creech in 2023 of climbing into bed with her while erect and wearing only his underwear, according to Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation records. A special prosecutor declined to file charges, and Creech has denied the allegations.

Husted, Ohio’s former lieutenant governor, was appointed by Gov. Mike DeWine in early 2025 to fill the Senate seat vacated by Vice President JD Vance. He faces former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown — who lost the seat to Republican Bernie Moreno in 2024 — in a Nov. 3 special election that will appear on ballots statewide, including in Seneca and Sandusky counties. The contest is among the most closely watched Senate races in the country.

Havas’s departure lands amid a separate line of Democratic attacks on Husted over his campaign finances. TiffinOhio.net has reported that Husted accepted $116,892 from Columbus billionaire Leslie Wexner between 2001 and 2025, including a contribution two months before he voted in September 2025 to block a Senate amendment directing the release of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein. In February 2026, the Justice Department unredacted an FBI document that named Wexner as an Epstein co-conspirator, and Wexner later confirmed the donations under oath in a congressional deposition. Wexner has denied wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime.

Husted’s campaign has said it gave Wexner’s contributions to charity, reporting $34,300 in donations from Wexner and his wife to a Columbus nonprofit that supports human-trafficking survivors.