Main image: The New Hampshire State House; the granite building is the oldest state capitol in which both houses of the Legislature meet in their original chambers (AP Photo/Holly Ramer); Inset: Mark Edgington appears in a campaign photo (Mark Edgington for Hillsboro 38/Facebook)
A man running for state representative in New Hampshire has dropped out after local media reported on his decades-old murder conviction.
Mark Edgington, 53, was originally accused of being an accessory to murder after the fact in the 1989 slaying of 37-year-old Ballapuran Umakanthan, the manager of an Econo Lodge in Bradenton, Florida. Taking a plea deal, he was convicted of murder in the second degree.
In the end, he served eight years in a Sunshine State correctional facility and subsequently cleaned up his act, finding a career in radio and a purpose in various projects of the libertarian movement.
Those beliefs brought Edgington, who also goes by “Mark Edge,” to New Hampshire, one of the most libertarian-leaning states in the country. Dozens of members of the Free State Project, a nonprofit organization that aims to transform the low population state into a libertarian stronghold, have been elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives. Edgington is a former member of the group and, until earlier this month, he was running in a Republican primary for one of two open seats in a float district that represents the Hillsborough County towns of Hudson and Litchfield.
