By Barrett Seaman–
With less than a week left before the deadline for certifying the June 23rd primary ballot, acting New York Supreme Court Justice David Fried rejected Republican Congressman Mike Lawler’s claim that Democratic candidate Effie Phillips-Staley’s petitions to be on that ballot were “permeated with fraud.”
No sooner had Judge Fried’s ruling been announced than the Lawler campaign called for “an immediate criminal investigation by state and federal authorities” of her petitions. “This is a criminal matter,” asserted Lawler’s campaign manager, Ciro Riccardi Wednesday morning. “Six voters testified live and under oath that signatures bearing their names were forged. Twenty-four more swore to the same thing in notarized affidavits. The candidate’s own lawyer admitted on the record that this ‘makes it fraud by somebody.’ Now we are calling on every law enforcement agency with jurisdiction — state and federal — to do their job, uncover how deep this fraud operation went, and hold the perpetrators of this scheme accountable.”
Judge Fried’s ruling, however, was that the Lawler campaign failed to prove that the invalid signatures were enough to taint the entire submission. Stipulating that as many as 501 signatures collected by one of Phillips-Staley’s hired collectors were invalid, the judge reasoned that that still left 2,058 valid signatures where only 1,250 were required to put her name on the ballot.
Moreover, the ruling concluded that the plaintiff failed to show that the candidate herself or her campaign had collaborated with the collector, one Dion McBean, to falsify signatures.
Judge Fried’s ruling did include a referral of the matter to the District Attorneys in the four counties represented in District 17. In addition to those jurisdictions, the Lawler campaign called for investigations by the New York State Attorney General, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the FBI.
Riccardi’s press release reiterated the campaign’s assertion that the two leading candidates in the Democratic primary race, Cait Conley and Beth Davidson, by remaining silent on the matter were complicit in the fraud. “Beth Davidson and Cait Conley have spent months telling voters that they are the defenders of democracy in this race,” Riccardi wrote. “A New York State Supreme Court Justice just adjudicated 501 signatures on their primary opponent’s petition as fraudulent and referred the matter to every District Attorney in the district. Their silence is its own answer.”
Assuming the State Supreme Court ruling stands, Phillips-Staley retains the option to remove herself from the Working Families Party (WFP) line on the November ballot should she not win the Democratic primary in June. By agreement with the Democrats, the WFP has pledged to endorse the winner of the primary rather than compete against the Democratic candidate in November.
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