October 2, 2009 This week, Preserve Ramapo filed a formal complaint and requested an investigation of the Rockland County District Attorney’s failure to investigate felony violations of New York State Election Law at a New Square polling place. We also asked that a second, independent investigation look at the possibility of election fraud based on a political relationship between the office or any individuals in the Office of the Rockland County District Attorney and the officials of the Village of New Square. Both requests were sent to the Public Integrity Bureau of the New York State Attorney General's Office in New York City. 

The matter in brief: In a Rockland County election, poll workers at a polling station in the Village of New Square, NY, handed out cards to those signing in to vote. The cards were to be redeemed by the voter’s children the next day at the child’s Yeshiva. The gift redeemed was intended as a reward to the child’s parent(s) for voting. A complaint made to the NYS Board of Elections returned a legal determination that the alleged behavior constituted a felony violation of NYS Election Law Section 17-142. On June 3, 2009, Preserve Ramapo filed a criminal complaint with the Rockland County District Attorney and requested a criminal investigation of the matter.

On August 28, 2009, the complainant (Preserve Ramapo) was advised the investigation was closed. An examination of the investigation file revealed that not one phone call, letter, request, email, or interview was initiated—no action at all was taken by the DA’s Office in the three intervening months regarding the multiple felonies.

On September 28, 2009, Preserve Ramapo filed a complaint and requested an investigation of the DA’s inaction in this matter. Further, the group requests a second, independent investigation of any improper political relationship between the officials of the Village of New Square and the elected officials in the District Attorney’s Office.

Complete narrative: On election night, (November, 2005), in the Supervisor’s race in Ramapo, NY, Preserve Ramapo sent a credentialed poll watcher to one of the polling stations in the village of New Square. The worker, Alan Schwartz, is a local resident. This is what he reported seeing on that evening:

"As the people came in and after they voted, they either were automatically given a card or they asked for their card."

"I later found out that they were told that if they voted (they did not tell me who they were supposed to vote for, though 99% voted for the Democratic line), they could bring the card back to the rabbi and they would get a gift. What the gift was, I was not told."

"I asked for a card, and they gave me one."

An important detail of Alan’s description is that he saw the Board of Elections appointed poll workers at the tables giving out the cards. These were the same people checking signatures and addresses of the voters.

The card that was handed out to the voters was written in Yiddish. We had two independent sources translate the message. It reads:

"Gift Privilege Card
Vote Election Committee of the Village of New Square
For Election Day Tuesday
Thank you very much and our expression of gratitude for coming to vote for the general good of the community.
With this card, your child will be eligible for a gift, tomorrow, Wednesday, in the school where he/she learns."

Within the prescribed time allowed for filing complaints, Preserve Ramapo filed a complaint first with the local Board of Elections (Sept. 19, 2006), and then, on that agency’s advice, filed the same complaint with the State Board.

Our complaint to the State Board of Elections was answered on May 14, 2009. Enforcement Counsel, Elizabeth C. Hogan, sent us Board Determination CMP06-72. [Full text of the letter available as a PDF here.] The letter read, in part:

"The conduct alleged, if true, would constitute a violation of Election Law Section 17-142, which prohibits gift giving in exchange for the franchise. . ." Section 17-142 defines the giving of the gift cards as a felony violation, not a misdemeanor. There were apparently as many repetitions of the violation as there were cards handed out that night.

Worried about the long delay in getting this response, I called the NYS Board Of Elections and was told by the director that the statute of limitations on the matter would run out in 2010. I then called for an interview with the Rockland DA to initiate a criminal complaint and to request an investigation.

On June 3, 2009, I met with Detective David Mulkeen at the offices of the Rockland County District Attorney’s Office. I explained the story and gave him copies of the State’s Determination, photocopies of the card and the translation, local newspaper coverage, and the contact information for Alan Schwartz. He said he would pass the information on to his superiors and that he would serve as my contact for progress reports. At this interview, I also gave Detective Mulkeen documents that described the same kind of behavior in the November 2006 election in Monsey, NY. There the gift offered was a free ice-cream maker, and that operation was shut down by the Sheriff’s Office. I asked Mulkeen if he could check on the progress of that investigation by his (the DA’s) office.

On August 28, 2009, after three months of frequent phone calls, I got a message from Gary Heavner, Executive Asst. DA, asking that I call back. When I reached him, I was told they had decided to close the investigation, and DA Heavner said there were three reasons for doing so.

The excuses are unacceptable. Heavner claimed they couldn’t find witnesses, yet they did not even bother to call our principal witness Mr. Schwartz who had picked up a card and who had explained the way they were handed out. I gave Mulkeen Schwartz’s cell phone number, but he was never contacted. Also, I told Mulkeen to get the list of poll workers from the County Board of Elections. The Board has the names of those who were giving out the cards and signing in the voters. I did not tell Mulkeen at the time, but if the DA had followed up on this, they likely would have discovered an illegal practice our observers have noted—that the official poll workers sometimes leave after several hours and are replaced by other "non-official workers." But the Rockland County Board of Elections was not contacted. I was not contacted by anyone to verify or explain anything, nor were the State BOE officials.

The excuse that the information was too old is an unusual assumption to make when there was no effort to verify or discount the basic facts of the complaint. Unless that assumption was made even before the investigation was begun, this makes no sense.

Finally, to say that the Sheriff’s investigation of the ice-cream makers was closed, therefore that provided some kind of reason for closing the investigation of the cards in New Square one year before also is a little tortured. We did not ask the DA to investigate the ice-cream maker offer. We asked for an evaluation of where that already-initiated investigation was.

On the same day that we were advised that the investigation was closed, we contacted the FOIL agent for the DA’s office and requested a copy of the entire contents of the closed file. I have included the email specifying all the types of information we requested. We were assured that everything was included in what was returned to us. [Nothing left out, nothing redacted.]

Preserve Ramapo would like your office [the PIB] to determine the true reasons for the closing of this investigation after three months of complete inactivity. We would also like to have an official judgment as to the professional appropriateness of neglecting what clearly appear to be multiple felonies that bring into question whether a fair and legitimate election was conducted in the Town of Ramapo in 2005.

Further, we would like the Public Integrity Bureau to determine, through an independent investigation, whether there was either a cause and effect or any quid pro quo involved in the vote in Districts 55 and 58 in 2007. The reason for this request hinges on the following unusual facts as well as the questions we have about the refusal to investigate the cards in the 2005 election.

In the election for District Attorney in 2003, incumbent Michael Bongiorno defeated Michael Diedrich. The vote totals in the two New Square voting districts (55 and 58) were overwhelming.

Bongiorno had been the DA for Rockland County for 12 years until the last election in 2007. And he had enjoyed the kind of support typified by the numbers in New Square in the 2003 election.

In the 2007 election, however, Governor Eliot Spitzer visited New Square officials in their village a few weeks before the election. In the two districts that traditionally respond as a directed bloc vote, there was a 180-degree flip as the Democratic Candidate, Thomas Zugibe, reversed the decade-old alignment.

The county-wide totals for 2007 were Zugibe 33,152 and Bongiorno 31,643.

Michael Bongiorno lost by a total of 1,509 votes. The dramatic reversal in New Square guaranteed the win for Zugibe.

In light of these facts, I would ask that the possibility be considered that the current DA, Thomas Zugibe, is now dependent on a strong turnout from these two voting Districts. Did these two thousand votes create any kind of immunity from investigations of voter violations such as the ones cited in our complaint?

I thank you for your attention in this matter, and I hope to hear from you soon concerning the status of this request. Please contact me if you have any questions.

Respectfully,
Michael Castelluccio
Preserve Ramapo

This complaint was sent earlier this week along with the entire contents of the closed investigation file (25 pages, virtually all of which was material we provided in our first interview).

We will report on the response from the Attorney General's Office as we receive information from them.

Michael Castelluccio