Four Plead Not Guilty In Connecticut Election Fraud Case

The charges are centered around the 2019 mayoral campaign.

A Bridgeport, Connecticut, city councilman and three campaign workers pleaded not guilty to absentee ballot fraud charges on July 10. Sixty-seven-year-old Wanda Geter-Pataky, 52-year-old Alfredo Castillo, 61-year-old Nilsa Heredia, and 62-year-old Josephine Edmonds all pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of election fraud.

The charges are centered around the 2019 mayoral campaign.

According to The Connecticut Post, Geter-Pataky is the deputy head of Bridgeport’s Democratic Town Committee, Castillo is a city councilman, Heredia is a supporter of Mayor Joe Ganim’s re-election campaign, and Edmonds is a supporter of Ganim’s challenger, state Sen. Marilyn Moore.

Edmonds, Geter-Pataky, and Heredia were charged with witness tampering, Geter-Pataky, Heredia, and Castillo were charged with misrepresenting eligibility requirements for voting via absentee ballot; Castillo, Edmonds, and Heredia were charged with failure to maintain an absentee ballot distribution list. Edmonds and Heredia were charged with being present when an absentee ballot applicant executed an absentee ballot, and Geter-Pataky and Castillo were charged with failure to sign as an assister on an absentee ballot. All of the accused pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Heredia’s attorney, Kenneth Krayeske, questioned why Ganim, who he claimed was the beneficiary of the fraud which his client was accused of, was not facing charges. Ganim’s spokesperson, Rowena White, issued a statement decrying Krayeske’s claims.

“It is irresponsible for attorney Krayeske to stoop to making these false statements to seek media attention for himself while at the same time doing disservice to his client,” White wrote.

According to The Associated Press, Ganim, who served time for a previous corruption conviction, emphasized that the integrity of the voting process needs to be upheld. “Whether it’s people accused from the Moore campaign or my campaign — any irregularity is unacceptable,” Ganim said in a statement after the arrests were announced on July 9. “We all agree that the integrity of the voting process is vital to our democracy.”

Moore, who is retiring from Connecticut’s state senate, followed Ganim’s statement with her own statement in an interview which focused on the importance of integrity.

“I ran on integrity and I also ran on integrity for my senate campaign. That’s what I tried to foster, integrity in all campaigns,” Moore said. “That I had a person doing the opposite bothers me, especially knowing who I am and knowing that I don’t cut corners on anything.”

Moore told The AP that she believed that the charges, which stemmed from the 2019 mayoral election, should have been brought sooner.

“Five years is much too long to prosecute a case. Look at the things that have happened since that case in Bridgeport with absentee ballots,” Moore said, referring to irregularities related to local and state elections in Bridgeport. “They’re all impacted by this because those people continued to do something underhanded in all of those elections.”

All four defendants have been released, pending a promise to appear in Bridgeport Superior Court on June 24.