Democratic state Rep. Kaniela Ing turned himself in to police Tuesday and was arrested on a bench warrant issued in February after he failed to appear in court to answer a citation for failure to have no-fault insurance on his car.

Ing said he was unaware he had missed his court date, and was in Honolulu on business the day his case came up in Maui District Court. He paid $250 bail and was released.

Ing said he plans to dispute the no-fault ticket because he wasn’t driving the vehicle in question when he got the ticket, and because he had no-fault insurance coverage on another vehicle.

“I know you folks are looking for a juicy scandal, but there’s nothing here,” he said.

Ing later issued a statement saying, “I deeply apologize for missing the notice and court date while on Oahu for legislative work. I will accept full responsibility for whatever outcome transpires, and apologize to my constituents for any embarrassment I have caused. This was a stupid mistake, it was a human mistake, and a lesson has been learned.”

Ing, who is involved in a hotly contested Democratic primary race, said it appears his political opponents are trying to use the bench warrant to tilt the outcome of the Aug. 13 primary election.

He is being challenged by Deidre Tegarden for the District 11 House seat representing South Maui. Tegarden served as chief of protocol under Gov. Neil Abercrombie and Gov. David Ige before leaving to seek the South Maui seat occupied by Ing since 2012.

Ing said his car had been vandalized in January while it was parked on the street in front of his South Kihei home, and he had been using rental cars for transportation. He said he canceled the insurance on the damaged vehicle.

Ing was attempting to fix the car on the street in front of his house on Jan. 20 when a police officer stopped and told him he could not continue to park the damaged car there. The officer asked for proof of insurance for the vehicle, and cited Ing because the insurance had expired, he said.

According to state records, a bench warrant was issued on Feb. 18 when Ing failed to appear in Wailuku District Court. Ing said he thought he could resolve the matter by paying a ticket, and did not know he needed to appear in court. Ing said in his statement he did not see the hearing notice from the court because at the time he only checked his mail on the weekends.

Ing said he learned of the warrant on Tuesday when his roommate called him to tell him police officers had come to his home and asked if he lived there. Ing said he was also told there were unidentified observers parked nearby in another vehicle with a camera. The media was tipped off about the warrant at about the same time and called him to ask about it, he said.

“I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but when you add up the camera, the media tipoff and the police tipoff on the same day, it’s like … it raises questions,” he said.

“As soon as I heard about it I went straight to the sheriff, I paid what I had to reschedule the court date, and I’m going to make my case then,” he said. He said his next court date is Aug. 25.