Several New Jersey Democrats, including Patterson City Council President Alex Mendez and his spouse who also serves as his campaign manager, have been indicted on multiple counts of election fraud offenses related to the ward council races that took place in 2020.
According to a report from the Bergen County Record, Attorney General Matthew Platkin has made an announcement stating that state investigators have concluded that Mendez, aged 48, engaged in the unlawful collection of ballots and supervised the fraudulent mailing of those ballots.
Furthermore, it has been asserted by investigators that individuals associated with the Mendez campaign engaged in the unlawful act of pilfering ballots from private mailboxes, thereafter discarding any ballots that did not support their candidate.
Additionally, Yohanny Mendez, the councilman’s spouse, Omar Ledesma, his campaign manager, and Iris Rigo, a supporter, were all implicated in the aforementioned case.
According to Platkin, “The defendants are accused of attempting to rig an election in their favor and to deprive the voters of Paterson of having their voices heard. The functioning of democracy relies on voters’ trust that their votes count and those votes determine the outcomes of elections.”
The present case originates from the electoral endeavors pursued by the Mendez campaign in the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
As per the findings of the Platkin’s Office, a considerable number of mail-in votes, which were gathered by individuals associated with the Mendez campaign, were observed to lack proper sealing by the voters upon submission. The state further contends that subsequent to the transportation of the ballots to Mendez’s campaign headquarters, a scrutiny was conducted to ascertain whether they constituted votes in favor of Mendez.
According to the attorney general’s office, it has been suggested that in the event that a voter did not choose Mendez, his spouse would purportedly discard the ballot and substitute it with a different mail-in ballot that indicated a selection for Mendez.
Furthermore, allegations have been made against campaign members for engaging in the practice of completing ballots on behalf of people who did not do so themselves.
Mendez and his co-defendants are facing further charges of witness tampering and engaging in activities aimed at undermining the investigation.
According to a statement from Thomas Eicher, the executive director of the attorney general’s Office of Public Integrity and Accountability, the indictment comes after a 41-month investigation, which may have been prolonged as a result of the tampering charges.
Eicher expressed gratitude for the extended duration during which the investigating team dedicated their efforts towards gathering evidence pertaining to the possibility of witness tampering. “I’m grateful for the many additional months of work the investigative team invested in pursuing evidence of potential witness tampering,” Eicher stated.
Mendez has refuted the charges and expressed anticipation for his next legal proceedings.
“This is unfair. They rushed to charge me four years ago, and when they knew those charges weren’t working and were going nowhere, they charge me with something else,” ,” Mendez told reporters on Wednesday.
The allegations against two individuals implicated in a prior election fraud case, which was initiated in the year 2020, have been dismissed. Allegations are also said to be pending against Councilman Michael Jackson, who, similar to Mendez, has asserted his innocence.
In June, “after being detained and accused of voter fraud, the Democrat mayor of North Beach Miami in Florida now faces 15 years in prison.” As we reported at the time.
Anthony DeFillipo, the mayor of Miami Beach, was detained on Wednesday. Voter fraud on three felony counts has been brought against him. Each one of the third-degree crimes charged carries a maximum five-year jail sentence.
An allegation that DeFillipo resided in the Broward County town of Davie was made in a complaint to the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics & Public Trust six months prior to his arrest. According to the North Miami Beach city charter, elected officials must live there.
DeFillipo acknowledged that he had a home in Davie, Florida, but claimed that he only used it as a family residence at the time due to marital problems. He claimed that he resides on his North Miami Beach property. DeFillipo admittedly owns two properties in Davie, according to records.
In July 2022, DeFillipo and his wife paid $1,226,500 for a six-bedroom house in Davie’s Sierra Ranches neighborhood, according to property records in Broward County. He confessed that he is a member of the Davie community’s homeowners association board.
According to an inquiry into DeFillipo, the Democrat mayor moved to his home in Davie.
DeFillipo was charged with traveling from Davie to North Miami Beach to vote in three successive elections in August, October, and November 2022, according to Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle. Rundle claimed that her agency used mobile phone data to establish that DeFillipo left his Davie residence, went to a North Miami Beach precinct to cast his ballot, and then came back to his Davie residence.
Source: MSN
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