'Cannabis candidate' for congress accused of abusing women

He's won world-wide attention by calling himself the "cannabis candidate" -- and, apparently, by becoming the first politician to place campaign ads on PornHub, an adult video website.

But now a Chicago-based journalist reports there may be a much uglier side to Benjamin Wolf.

“This is an AR-15 assault rifle. This is the same weapon I carried in Iraq,” Wolf said in an ad while holding an AR-15.

Wolf says he’s never been in the military, but provided security and training in Iraq for the U.S. State Department.

With eye-catching stunts like that ad and smoking what he says was marijuana in front of a re-imagined American flag, Wolf has gotten light-hearted coverage from California to Israel.  

Some of those stories are now being taken down or rewritten in the wake of a bombshell report posted on Politico.com by veteran Chicago journalist Natasha Korecki. Multiple women and a professor at DePaul University told Korecki that Wolf physically or verbally abused them.

“Here's a person running for congress. And he's been banned from DePaul University campus. And it wasn't just because of one person or one incident, but multiple incidents,” Korecki said. “We saw documents and emails from DePaul security saying that they believe that he was a danger.”

Wolf told FOX 32 he was too busy to respond immediately on-camera, but by telephone he claimed the accusations were all part of an effort by Mayor Emanuel and other top Democrats to prevent him from defeating incumbent Rep. Mike Quigley in the March 20th Democratic primary.

“You know what? They want an establishment politician in congress, announced representatives for them. They don't want someone like me. They cannot control me. We walk around in black leather jackets, wearing black bucks, like I say, talking about things like legalizing cannabis and universal health care. And that is upsetting the system,” Wolf told FOX 32.

There is a 5th congressional district forum scheduled for Saturday morning at the Davis Theater on North Lincoln Avenue. All five candidates, including Wolf, are invited.