HILO, Hawaii — A student z at Mankato West High School 27 years ago denied ever being sexually assaulted by Minnesota Governor Ti m Walz. Matthew Metro, age 47, now living in Hawaii,, was responding to a faked item on the online site X, formerly Twitter on October 13. The claim went viral. Walz, now the running mate of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, chose not to respond to the X item. But not so Metro. He expressed anger at his name being expropriated. Yes, he was a student Mankato West but Metro said never took a class from Walz or was coached by him or knew him. Metro told the newspaper Hawaii Today: “It disgusts me. It makes me feel very, very awful about the fact that people are trying to manipulate our elections and using innocent people to do it.” Metro said he wants to get the fake story under control. It appears he said, that the perpetrator lifted his name and picture from the high school yearbook. Somebody bearing no resemblance to him played his part in the online video. With the video debunked, X finally took it down. . By then there had been been 5 million views. Trump bloggers recklessly picked it up. So did Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance. Said Metro: “The blatant disregard for the fact that I am a person, that they used an image of me that I didn’t approve, and I didn’t want it to be used, I was enraged.” About his own politics, Metro said he supports Harris and Walz and will vote for them.