Nazareth woman pleads guilty in fraud case
A Nazareth woman has pleaded guilty to forging signatures on nomination petitions in 2018 to add Libertarian candidates to the ballot in the 7th Congressional District, the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office said Monday.
Amber Correll, 39, and Jake Towne, 40, of Easton, were charged in November, after a grand jury investigation, with falsifying petition signatures.
Correll, who is awaiting sentencing, was charged with 101 counts, including forgery, identity theft, false signatures and tampering with records.
Towne, a one-time congressional candidate and the
Northampton County Libertarian Party’s secretary and former chair, is awaiting trial on charges including false signatures, perjury and tampering with records.
Investigators say Towne signed nominating petitions asserting he was the one who circulated them when he actually paid Correll to gather signatures.
The investigation began in August 2018, when voters in the 7th District, where there was a three-way race between Democrat Susan Wild, Republican Marty Nothstein and Libertarian Tim Silfies, sent a letter to the Department of State alleging nomination papers for Silfies and other Libertarian candidates contained forged signatures and other irregularities.
A page on one petition showed “striking similarities in handwriting,” a grand jury presentment states. Investigators interviewed 23 of the 25 people whose purported signatures appeared on the page and each person said he or she did not sign the document.
Correll collected signatures for Towne, who told her not to sign the back of the petition, she told investigators. She said she received $2 per signature and did not tell Towne or anyone else that she forged the names, signatures and personal information the petition contained.
Correll also admitted she did not have permission to use the names and identities on the page.
Towne’s attorney, Gary Asteak of Easton, said Towne was provided with forged signatures “unbeknownst to him” and was not complicit in attempts to provide false information.
“This contrived case against Jake Towne is the result of a corrupt system that seeks to silence political activists,” Northampton County Libertarian Party chair Jane Horvath said. “The charges against Mr.
Towne originated with a GOP fishing expedition to coerce two third-party candidates to withdraw from running for office.
“Circulators in Pennsylvania have never been required to witness signatures on a petition sheet,” Horvath said. “They only need to have ‘requisite knowledge,’ meaning reason to believe that the signatures are genuine. Dozens of previous civil cases prove this. What Towne did has never been tried in a criminal court because it is not a criminal matter.
“The criminal, Ms. Correll, admitted under oath that she used county tax records to make her forgeries seem legitimate,” she said. “She confessed that she worked alone to deceive Towne, and also stated he had no knowledge the names she forged were not authentic.”