‘Not guilty’ in voter fraud case
TROY — Rensselaer County Board of Elections Democratic Commissioner Edward McDonough was found not guilty on 61 counts brought against him in the ballot fraud case linked to the 2009 Working Families Party primary.
McDonough was charged with 62 counts, but the jury was unable to reach a conclusion on the count pertaining to voter Jermaine Joseph, according to Special Prosecutor Trey Smith, who discussed the legal intricacies as to why the jury could not decide on it.
As the verdict was being read, McDonough’s family was visibly emotional. Afterwards, McDonough did not share much with the press, except for some of his celebration plans.
“Justified after three years of what went down,” McDonough said regarding his feelings on the verdict. “I’m going to have a celebratory Christmas drink.”
Smith said he was “stunned” by the verdict the jury reached and couldn’t understand it, but said he must respect its decision. He said he was disappointed only for the people of the city as he said he believed in the case he presented.
“I’m really at a loss,” Smith said. “As for anything else to say, I felt I put on a really good case and I felt the evidence was compelling.”
Brian Premo, who represented McDonough, said he knew this would be the verdict from day one of the trial and said he was proud of both his client and his family for sticking through the five-week trial.
“I’m proud my client had the fortitude to call out the prosecutor to his face and to expose the truth and the facts in this matter,” Premo said before hinting there will be something else to come in this case. “I can tell you firmly this is the beginning of a chapter because this is not ending here. We’ve made that clear from day one and there will be further proceedings.”
The verdict came hours after the jury requested information about whether McDonough could be considered guilty by instructing someone to commit a forgery, referring to testimony given by BOE employee Kevin O’Malley, who said McDonough instructed him to fill out false information on excuse fields on absentee ballot applications. Jurors were also read the definitions of forgery and criminal possession of a forged instrument along with the definition of intent for both.
Although McDonough and former Councilman Michael LoPorto have been acquitted in this case, former City Council President Clemente Campana and Councilman Gary Galuski, D-District 6, have yet to be tried. But Smith said those two cases are something he needs to consider, given the resources expended by the county and the toll the case has taken on the victims of ballot fraud.
“I’ll have to take a hard look at that and will need to contact the victims and contact the state police and consult with them,” Smith said. “Obviously, with this verdict, we have to decide if any of the charges are worth pursuing.”
Former City Council President Clemente Campana said that’s something he wished Smith had done before he indicted him in the case.
“I wish he took a harder look at this before he dragged me into this,” Campana said. “I’ve said it from the start, I did nothing wrong. But we’ll see what happens.”
This trial started out with McDonough being charged with 38 counts of second degree forgery and 35 counts of second degree possession of a forged instrument, but the jury was only served with 62 counts all together. McDonough and LoPorto had been tried together with a 103 felony count indictment earlier this year, but that trial ended with a hung jury.