Attack ads, Bill Cosby, and the Penn State Alumni Association. These are three things that tend not to go together, but, well, here we are.

Penn State Alumni Association President Kevin Steele is running for Montgomery County District Attorney. The Dickinson School of Law graduate (which became the Penn State Dickinson School of Law after he graduated) and current Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney has made some headlines recently in his evidently contentious political race with this bruiser of an attack ad against his opponent Bruce Castor, who previously served as Montgomery County District Attorney from 2000 to 2008.

Steele, who is currently prosecuting the Kathleen Kane case, accuses his opponent of “refusing to prosecute Bill Cosby” and “not looking out for the victims.”

The release of the video elicited a response from Castor to PoliticsPA:

“Predictable craziness from a desperate candidate. The information about all of Cosby’s alleged victims came to light after I left the DAs Office and lost the power to enforce the law. However, Mr. Steele is still a prosecutor and could have moved against Cosby anytime after the additional evidence became available a year or so ago. Yet he did nothing. He’s been first assistant for 8 years and done nothing on Cosby in all that time. Now the election rolls around and somehow it’s my fault? If he had been doing his job, and the evidence was there, he could have arrested Cosby. Simple as that. Sad to see him this way. I feel sorry for him. Switching parties and all, then realizing no one trusts him anymore. A pity, as he was once a better than average assistant DA.”

It didn’t take Castor long to release a harsh attack ad of his own against Steele, in which he lobbed back the same accusations about Bill Cosby and claimed that he was already out of office by the time the Cosby sexual assault claims surfaced.

“Kevin Steele could have done something because he’s still a prosecutor but he chose to do nothing at all,” Castor says in the ad. “Now he’s trying to blame me for his mistakes and incompetence. Despicable desperation politics. Disgusting lies. Kevin Steele had the ability to help victims of Bill Cosby, but he sat on his hands.”

Ouch.

The Penn State Alumni Association Council is scheduled to hold its first meeting with Steele at the helm this Thursday and Friday on campus. Election Day is November 3.