Connecticut prosecutors charged four Bridgeport political operatives on Tuesday with abusing the absentee balloting system during the city’s 2019 Democratic primary for mayor.
Bridgeport city councilman Alfredo Castillo and Wanda Geter-Pataky, the vice chairwoman of the city’s Democratic Party who became the face of another major election scandal last year, are among those charged.
The Connecticut Chief State’s Attorney also charged Nilsa Heredia and Josephine Edmonds, two other campaign workers who were involved in the 2019 primary between Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim and his Democratic challenger, Marilyn Moore.
All four defendants are accused of unlawfully possessing another person’s absentee ballot, along with a variety of other election-related charges.
Geter-Pataky, Edmonds and Heredia are also charged with witness tampering.
Castillo, Heredia and Geter-Pataky all supported Ganim in the 2019 primary for mayor. Edmonds worked for the Moore campaign.
The four political operatives were all arrested early this week and were released on promises to appear in Bridgeport Superior Court on June 24.
None of the defendants could be reached for comment on Tuesday, and it was not immediately clear which attorneys are representing them in the pending criminal cases.
“Integrity of our voting process is vital to our democracy,” Chief State’s Attorney Patrick Griffin said in a prepared statement. “I appreciate the attention and time the Statewide Prosecution Bureau put into these investigations. I hope these prosecutions will send a message that deters tampering with election results in the future in Connecticut.”
The charges against the political operatives come more than four years after the primary between Ganim and Moore ended in a lawsuit and widespread allegations of absentee ballot fraud.
It took the State Elections Enforcement Commission three years to investigate the complaints about that primary and to refer the case to the Chief State’s Attorney for potential criminal charges. It then took Griffin’s office another year to substantiate that investigation and to file the charges in state court.
Meanwhile, many of the same political operatives continued to play a major role in local elections in Bridgeport, a city with a history of ballot fraud and election do-overs.
Bridgeport’s 2023 Democratic primary for mayor also led to widespread accusations of ballot tampering after Geter-Pataky and several other people were captured on surveillance footage depositing stacks of absentee ballots into drop boxes in the city.
That evidence prompted a state Superior Court Judge to overturn the results of that primary, which Ganim won on the strength of absentee votes.
But the criminal charges filed on Tuesday do not address the alleged absentee ballot abuse that occurred last year during that 2023 primary between Ganim and his Democratic challenger John Gomes.
‘I don’t touch none of that stuff’
Affidavits obtained by The Connecticut Mirror accuse the four political operatives of a variety of crimes.
Some of the charges are related to the political operatives not maintaining paperwork about which voters they distributed absentee ballot applications to or failing to sign the applications they helped people to fill out.
The more serious charges, however, stem from allegations that the political operatives assisted voters in filling out their actual ballots or that they illegally took possession of those ballots once they were completed.
In Connecticut, the only people who can legally deliver an absentee ballot on behalf of another voter are direct family members, police officers, local election officials or someone who is directly caring for someone who receives an absentee ballot because they are ill or physically disabled. The voter has to appoint those people as their designee.
Castillo’s case centers around a complaint that was filed by Kadeem Graham, who lived in Castillo’s city council district. Graham told SEEC investigators that Castillo assisted him in requesting an absentee ballot in the summer of 2019 and that when the absentee ballot arrived, Castillo came to his house and took it.
Even more, Graham told investigators that he never had the opportunity to fill out the ballot.
When interviewed by investigators, Castillo initially denied knowing Graham and he claimed he never provided Graham with an application for an absentee ballot.
When investigators produced a copy of Graham’s application for an absentee ballot, Castillo admitted it was indeed his handwriting that filled out portions of that form. But Castillo, who has served in the Bridgeport city council since 2013, continued to deny that he handled Graham’s actual ballot.
“Not me. I didn’t take no absentee ballot. I don’t do that,” Castillo told investigators, according to the affidavit. “I don’t touch none of that stuff… He didn’t give me no ballot.”
The allegations against Geter-Pataky, who was recently reelected as the vice chair of the Bridgeport Democratic Town Committee, are similar in nature.
The affidavit filed in her case revolves around an absentee ballot submitted by April Keitt, who had known Geter-Pataky for 10 years.
Keitt told investigators that Geter-Pataky came to her house and assisted her in filling out an application to vote absentee and that when the ballot eventually arrived, Geter-Pataky returned to pick up the completed ballot.
Like Castillo, Geter-Pataky admitted that she helped Keitt to fill out an application for a ballot. But she repeatedly denied taking Keitt’s ballot.
When the Connecticut Post began calling voters about alleged absentee ballot irregularities following the 2019 primary, Geter-Pataky also allegedly asked Keitt not to mention her name to anyone.
A culture
Ganim, who has won multiple elections on the strength of absentee votes, declined to an interview request from the CT Mirror on Tuesday, but his office issued a statement pointing out that one of the four people who was arrested worked for Moore’s campaign in 2019.
“We only learned through the media that individuals from both 2019 mayoral primary campaigns have been charged with election violations,” Ganim said the statement. “We have not been provided with any details other than what is contained in media reports.”
During an interview Tuesday, Moore said she was glad to finally see criminal charges filed over the 2019 mayoral primary, which she lost by 270 votes. And she said she was deeply disappointed by the allegations against one of her former campaign staffers.
“For me, it doesn’t matter who did it,” Moore said. “If you did it, it’s wrong. I don’t care whose campaign you are in or who you are helping. Wrong is wrong. And I would hope that they are all treated equally.”
“If I had known that, I would have nipped it in the bud right away,” Moore said. “I believe in right and wrong, strongly. I would not have tolerated it if I had known.”
Moore blamed the continued problems with absentee voting in Bridgeport on the culture in the city and the cutthroat nature of local political campaigns.
“It is a culture, and it is what people have grown up with in Bridgeport,” Moore said.
Gemeem Davis, who served as a campaign manager for Moore in 2019, shared a similar sentiment. She said many people who have been around campaigns in Bridgeport don’t think they are breaking the law when they inform someone how to vote or when they harvest an absentee ballot to deliver it to local election officials.
“They definitely don’t see it as breaking the law,” said Davis, who is now the co-director of Bridgeport Generation Now.
The mindset of campaign workers won’t change, Moore argued, until people face more serious consequences for violating the absentee balloting laws. Fines are not enough to change the system in Bridgeport, Moore said.
Republicans in the General Assembly proposed setting mandatory minimum prison sentences for election-related crimes this year, but that proposal did not make it through the Democratic-controlled House and Senate.
“Democrats in the state Senate chamber repeatedly voted no to putting teeth into our election integrity laws,” Senate Republicans Stephen Harding and Rob Sampson said in a statement following news of the charges. “They voted ‘no’ to holding bad actors accountable.”
Moore said she would also like to see public employees who are convicted of absentee ballot crimes lose their pensions and other benefits.
“Unless you are punished for it severely and appropriately, then why not do it again?” Moore said.