Posted on Friday, 21st January 2005 by Patrick Dorwin
This comes via Charlie Sykes…Depressing!
This gives you a little look at how McCann does business, now you know why we don’t trust this man, public corruption is never seen as a serious problem by him..>Why can’t we get a challenger for this criminal loving DA? I did my part the last two times he was up for his unopposed reelection I wrote in Jeff Wagner!
A REASON NOT TO BE TOO EXCITED ABOUT THE TIRE SLASHING CHARGES
As we wait for E. Michael McCann to come out with his charges (on Monday), here’s a reason not to get too jazzed…
Nine months after District Attorney E. Michael McCann held a news conference to announce that arrests of a suspected voter-fraud ring had led to 92 felony charges – a total that would eventually rise to over 100 – nearly all those charges have been reduced to misdemeanors and only one person is likely to ever serve a jail sentence.
Although McCann’s office had alleged that the African-American Coalition for Empowerment, or ACE, forged 40 of the 160 absentee ballots turned in by workers during the 2003 recall election of Milwaukee County Board Chairman Lee Holloway, prosecutors opted not to pursue felony charges for nearly all the complaints.
The decision came after the first two trials of ACE workers resulted in an acquittal and a relatively light sentence. Barbara Triblett was acquitted of 15 felony charges in January, and alleged vote-drive ringleader Vincent Knox received six months in the House of Correction on three felony convictions; prosecutors had sought three years.
Assistant District Attorney David Feiss, who has overseen the ACE prosecutions, said his office assessed the situations after Triblett’s and Knox’s trials. The prosecutors, Feiss said, resigned themselves to two facts: They could not prove the organized fraud conspiracy that the pattern of forged ballots suggested, and ensuing trials would likely be affected by Knox’s sentence. So deals were cut.
“We re-evaluated what the evidence was,” Feiss said.
Defendants accused of up to 23 voter-fraud-related felonies were allowed to plead guilty to two or three misdemeanor offenses – and pay a fine of $100 for each. Feiss said the plea-bargain deals were appropriate punishments because, on closer inspection, the offenses appeared to be more voter-drive sloppiness than conspiracy.
“It is not fair to say that this office does not take public corruption seriously,” Feiss said. “The number of people who were charged shows that we take this seriously.”
McCann did not return a phone call seeking comment on the ACE cases.
The record of prosecutions against the ACE defendants:
Knox, 53, of the 2500 block of N. 1st St., faced three felony counts – election fraud, misconduct in office and perjury. He was convicted in January and sentenced to six months in the House of Correction with work-release privileges.
Triblett, 39, of the 2100 block of N. 40th St., faced 18 felony counts – six counts each of election fraud, forgery and perjury. One count of each was dropped by prosecutors, and a jury found her not guilty of the rest in a January trial.
Velma Jackson, 40, of the 2000 block of N. 40th St., who faced 23 felony counts, pleaded guilty in January to two misdemeanor counts of election fraud and was fined $100 for each.
Darcell Grafton, 21, of the 1500 block of N. 34th St., faced 12 felony counts but pleaded guilty in March to two misdemeanor counts of election fraud and was fined $100 for each.
Charles Burton, 53, of the 1500 block of N. 34th St., faced 11 felony counts and pleaded guilty in March to one misdemeanor count of election fraud and was fined $200.
Barbara Burton, 46, of the 1500 block of N. 34th St., faced five felony counts but pleaded guilty in December to one misdemeanor count of election fraud and was fined $200.
Prentiss Grafton, 28, of the 1500 block of N. 34th St., faced 10 felony counts and pleaded guilty in April to one misdemeanor count of election fraud, and is scheduled for sentencing May 3.
Dennis James, 37, of the 2100 block of N. 40th St., faces eight felony counts – four each of election fraud and forgery, and is scheduled for trial April 28.
Michael Hanford, 32, of the 1400 block of W. Greenfield Ave., faces 12 felony counts – six each of election fraud and forgery, and is waiting to get a new attorney before a trial date is set.
Feiss said the plea bargains were made only with defendants who agreed to help prosecutors understand the extent of the suspected vote-fraud ring. One of the earliest plea-bargainers – Feiss would not say who – provided the prosecutors with enough information that they believed they would never know who signed the bogus ballots or organized the rest of the effort. The decision to offer the rest of the plea-bargains came soon after.
Tom Erickson, who was the court-appointed attorney for Knox, said McCann and his assistants “put the cart before the horse” when they held the July news conference to allege that the ring intentionally perpetrated organized fraud.
“It never really fit,” Erickson said. “They wanted to make a statement. Vincent (Knox) has some reputation in the community as being an activist, and he was the guy they hung this on.”
Erickson also said that because the defendants were split up into separate cases, their outcomes have been less noticed than the news conference McCann held to announce the charges.
“That’s too bad,” Erickson said. “I think it was grandstanding, personally.”
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