A deceased person’s voter fraud indictment leads to a local county dispute with the AG’s office

COLUMBUS, Ohio — After Ohio’s attorney general indicted a deceased man for voter fraud, Cuyahoga County officials are accusing him of playing politics before the election. We obtained documents showing the beginning of a communication breakdown.

It’s been a good week for Attorney General Dave Yost.

“We’re talking today about non-citizen voting,” Yost said during a news conference Tuesday.

During her event, the AG boasted about six voter fraud indictments in previous elections. Each is a green card holder who allegedly voted in the previous election.

Three were from northeast Ohio and the remaining three were from the Columbus area. All were legal permanent residents or green card holders.

That investigation began over the summer when Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose complained to Yost that local district attorneys were failing to follow up on his team’s reports of possible voter fraud.

Of the six people charged, one was a 68-year-old North Royalton man who allegedly voted in 2014, 2016 and 2018.

“You will be held accountable in the state of Ohio,” Yost said.

Even if you’re dead?

As it turns out, the voter died two years ago. However, Yost accused him.

“This is one of the greatest examples of prosecutorial overreach that I have ever seen,” Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley said in a statement Wednesday that left me heartbroken. “The practice of accusing the dead is draconian.”

O’Malley says he is “philosophically opposed to blaming dead people who clearly have no means of defending themselves.”

Cuyahoga County prosecutor blasts state attorney general for accusing deceased of voter fraud

“In my office, that’s not how we would have handled this case,” O’Malley said. “I call on Ohio Attorney General David Yost to immediately dismiss this indictment.”

When Yost’s team learned of the death, they told us they would “of course” drop the charges. On Friday, we asked LaRose how this could have happened.

“You know, really – that’s a question for the district attorney, because why did it take so long for him to not prosecute this case and we had to turn it over to the attorney general?” – LaRose replied.

Cuyahoga County continues to vehemently deny the referral in this case, but we have obtained certain documents from the AG’s office.

In a March 25, 2020 memo, a Bureau of Investigation special agent wrote that he had sent “complete investigative reports” regarding the alleged voter to a former Cuyahoga County assistant prosecutor for review.

“No additional investigative action is necessary at this time,” the agent wrote.

At the top of the log, it marks the case as “closed.”

I contacted Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office spokeswoman Lexi Bauer. The team was unable to conduct an interview, but provided information as we reached out throughout the week.

“We have searched our case management system and do not have any records regarding this case,” Bauer wrote to me.

In an earlier text message, she told me that they “couldn’t explain why it was closed for them.”

She added that their APA left the office in early 2023.

“We have handled numerous voter fraud cases brought to our attention by the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, including one this week,” she said. “We cooperate with the Ohio Attorney General’s Office on a daily basis. If there was a problem with this case, it was never reported to our office.”

I have asked the AG’s office for any documentation showing direct communication between their office and Cuyahoga County or a letter from the county declining to pursue criminal prosecution. Their spokesperson told me they were working on many of my requests.

Bauer, however, raised an issue that many other officials in other counties have raised – the timing is “suspicious.”

“We can only speculate as to why this issue came up two weeks before Election Day, but it appears to be politically motivated,” Bauer said. “A sincere prosecution of this case would include an investigation that would quickly reveal that (the person) died two years ago. “Obviously, this investigation was not completed before the case was presented to a grand jury.”

Atiba Ellis, a nonpartisan election law professor at Case Western Reserve University, was stunned by the release of the indictment. He also questioned the timing and analysis of both Yost and LaRose.

“It seems to be more geared towards trying to show evidence where there is little evidence,” Ellis added. “The indictment of a deceased person would, at a minimum, raise a presumption that the Office of the Attorney General or the Office of the Secretary of State failed to exercise the due diligence necessary to bring appropriate indictments.”

In conversations with various agencies and boards of elections, it was noted that there are Democratic prosecutors in every county investigated by the Republican AG and secretary.

Of the defendants alive (that we know of), two were from northeast Ohio. One was a 78-year-old woman from Hudson in Summit County who allegedly voted in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. The second person was a 32-year-old man from Kent in Portage County who allegedly voted in 2016 and 2018.

The other three were based in the Columbus area. The 35-year-old man allegedly voted in 2008 and 2020; The 53-year-old woman allegedly voted in 2016 and 2020; and a 62-year-old woman allegedly voted in 2016 and 2018.

The Summit County indictment is listed as “secret,” meaning it is confidential.

“Under the Ohio Revised Code, it is impermissible to comment on a secret indictment before a defendant is in custody or on trial,” said James Pollack, spokesman for the Summit County Attorney’s Office.

It’s unclear how Yost managed to break the news on Tuesday, before the person in question was in custody or in court.

The Portage County Attorney’s Office never responded to repeated requests.

The Franklin County Attorney’s Office, which is communicated to by an outside public relations firm, said the cases were indeed referred to it.

“The office has reviewed the cases and made the decision not to prosecute them,” the PR team said.

I asked their spokesman why they didn’t press charges.

“They don’t want to give those reasons at this time,” was the response.

In summary, Yost emphasized that six potential fraudulent voters out of 8 million registered voters is a minuscule number – and proved that there is no widespread voter fraud in Ohio.

“Such voting irregularities are rare… Ahead of the upcoming elections, we should all be assured that the law is and will continue to be enforced,” the AG said.

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