By Joey Cappelletti
Associated Press
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan’s attorney general filed felony charges Tuesday against 16 Republicans who acted as fake electors for then-President Donald Trump in 2020, accusing them of submitting false certificates that confirmed they were legitimate electors despite Joe Biden’s victory in the state.
Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, announced Tuesday that all 16 people would face eight criminal charges, including forgery and conspiracy to commit election forgery. The top charges carry a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.
The group includes the head of the Republican National Committee’s chapter in Michigan, Kathy Berden, as well as the former co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party, Meshawn Maddock, and Shelby Township Clerk Stan Grot.
In seven battleground states, including Michigan, supporters of Trump signed certificates that falsely stated he won their states, not Biden. The fake certificates were ignored, but the attempt has been subject to investigations, including by the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
“The false electors’ actions undermined the public’s faith in the integrity of our elections and, we believe, also plainly violated the laws by which we administer our elections in Michigan,” Nessel said in a statement.
The 16 individuals are set to appear for arraignment in Ingham County at a date provided to each by the court, according to Nessel’s office.
Phone and email messages seeking comment Tuesday from several of the people charged were not immediately returned.
One of those charged, John Haggard, 82, of Charlevoix, told The Detroit News on Tuesday that he he didn’t believe he did anything wrong.
“Did I do anything illegal? No,” Haggard said.
GOP state Sen. Ed McBroom, who chaired a GOP-led Senate panel to investigate Michigan’s 2020 presidential election that found no wrongdoing, said he previously spoke with one of the fake electors. It was clear, McBroom said, that the effort was organized by “people who put themselves in a position of authority and posing themselves as the ones who knew what they were doing.”
“They were wrong,” McBroom told The Associated Press. “And other people followed them when they shouldn’t have.”
Berden and Mayra Rodriguez, a Michigan lawyer who was also charged Tuesday, were both questioned by congressional investigators as part of the U.S. House panel’s investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection.
In January of last year, Nessel asked federal prosecutors to open a criminal investigation into the 16 Republicans.
“Obviously this is part of a much bigger conspiracy,” she said at the time.
Electors are people appointed to represent voters in presidential elections. The winner of the popular vote in each state determines which party’s electors are sent to the Electoral College, which meets in December after the election to certify the outcome.
False Electoral College certificates were also submitted declaring Trump the winner of Arizona, Georgia, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Investigations are underway in some other states that submitted fake electors, but not all.
A Georgia prosecutor investigating possible illegal meddling in the 2020 election has agreed to immunity deals with at least eight fake electors. And Arizona’s Democratic attorney general is in the very early stages of a probe. Nevada’s attorney general, also a Democrat, has said he won’t bring charges, while Wisconsin has no active investigation and the attorney general has deferred to the U.S. Justice Department.
There is no apparent investigation in Pennsylvania and former Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who is now governor, said he didn’t believe there was evidence the actions of the fake electors met the legal standards for forgery.
A group of other Trump allies in Michigan, including former GOP attorney general candidate Matthew DePerno, are facing potential criminal charges related to attempts to gain access to voting machines after the 2020 election.
According to documents released last year by Nessel’s office, five vote tabulators were taken from Roscommon and Missaukee counties in northern Michigan, and Barry County in western Michigan. The tabulators were subsequently broken into and “tests” were performed on the equipment.
A grand jury was convened in March at the request of a special prosecutor to consider indictments, according to court records. The special prosecutor, D.J. Hilson, wrote in May in a court document that “a charging decision is ready to be made.”
On Tuesday, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced felony charges against 16 Michigan residents for their role in the alleged false electors scheme following the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
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The charged defendants are:
• Kathy Berden, 70, of Snover
• William (Hank) Choate, 72, of Cement City
• Amy Facchinello, 55, of Grand Blanc
• Clifford Frost, 75, of Warren
• Stanley Grot, 71, of Shelby Township
• John Haggard, 82, of Charlevoix
• Mary-Ann Henry, 65, of Brighton
• Timothy King, 56, of Ypsilanti
• Michele Lundgren, 73, of Detroit
• Meshawn Maddock, 55, of Milford
• James Renner, 76, of Lansing
• Mayra Rodriguez, 64, of Grosse Pointe Farms
• Rose Rook, 81, of Paw Paw
• Marian Sheridan, 69, of West Bloomfield
• Ken Thompson, 68, of Orleans
• Kent Vanderwood, 69, of Wyoming
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Each defendant has been charged with:
• One count of Conspiracy to Commit Forgery, a 14-year felony.
• Two counts of Forgery, a 14-year felony.
• One count of Conspiracy to Commit Uttering and Publishing, a 14-year felony.
• One count of Uttering and Publishing, a 14-year felony.
• One count of Conspiracy to Commit Election Law Forgery, a 5-year felony.
• Two counts of Election Law Forgery, a 5-year felony.
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“My department has prosecuted numerous cases of election law violations throughout my tenure, and it would be malfeasance of the greatest magnitude if my department failed to act here in the face of overwhelming evidence of an organized effort to circumvent the lawfully cast ballots of millions of Michigan voters in a presidential election,” said Nessel.
These defendants are alleged to have met covertly in the basement of the Michigan Republican Party headquarters on December 14th, and signed their names to multiple certificates stating they were the “duly elected and qualified electors for President and Vice President of the United States of America for the State of Michigan.” These false documents were then transmitted to the United States Senate and National Archives in a coordinated effort to award the state’s electoral votes to the candidate of their choosing, in place of the candidates actually elected by the people of Michigan.
“The evidence will demonstrate there was no legal authority for the false electors to purport to act as ‘duly elected presidential electors’ and execute the false electoral documents,” Nessel continued. “Every serious challenge to the election had been denied, dismissed, or otherwise rejected by the time the false electors convened. There was no legitimate legal avenue or plausible use of such a document or an alternative slate of electors. There was only the desperate effort of these defendants, who we have charged with deliberately attempting to interfere with and overturn our free and fair election process, and along with it, the will of millions of Michigan voters. That the effort failed and democracy prevailed does not erase the crimes of those who enacted the false electors plot.”
Each defendant, or their attorneys, have been notified of the charges and the court will provide each with a date to appear before the 54-A District Court in Ingham County for arraignment.
This remains an ongoing investigation, and the Michigan Department of Attorney General has not ruled out potential charges against additional defendants. Each of the 16 charged defendants will next appear in 54-A District Court in Ingham County for individual arraignments. No dates have yet been set by the court for subsequent proceedings.
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