Appalachia, Virginia

From the memory bank...

December 2006
Ben Cooper, 64, the former mayor and town manager of Appalachia who rigged an election to tighten his grip on the small coal-mining town, was convicted of 243 felonies.

Fourteen people, most of them relatives of running mate Owen "Andy" Sharrett or supporters of Cooper, were indicted. (Read full indictment here.)

The conspiracy involved forging the names of the intended voters on the stolen ballots and mailing them back to the voter registrar. Town clerk Belinda Sharrett and former police Officer Benjamin Surber -- pleaded guilty. Retired mail carrier Don Estridge found guilty in a jury trial and was sentenced to 18 months for his part. (Later slashed to one year.) Ben Cooper was sentenced to two years in prison. Former parks and recreation director Dude Sharrett got one year of electronic monitoring. He pleaded guilty and named as his co-conspirators a group of people who included his wife, two sons, an aunt, the town's former mayor, and Don Estridge.

Andy Sharrett (a town councilman swept into office by the tainted 2004 elections) was sentenced to 60 days home electronic monitoring and the rest of a three-year sentence on supervised probation, as well as community service hours to the town. Adam Sharett received a 12-month suspended jail sentence, with that year on supervised probation and 100 hours of community service to the town.

Sharrett testified that an aunt, Betty Chloe Sharrett Bolling - a longtime activist in local Democratic politics and a former poll precinct worker - figured prominently in the scheme to snare absentee ballots, ensure the tampered ballots contained all the necessary information in all the appropriate places, and made sure they got returned to the Board of Elections. Bolling filled in parts of the ballots. She pleaded guilty to 52 counts for her role in vote fraud. No sentencing information found.

There seems to have been a gambling connection.

Atlantic City, NEW JERSEY

ELECTION FRAUD ALLEGED BY CITY COUNCILMAN AND CAMPAIGN WORKERS

ARRAIGNED Nov 4, 2009
Atlantic City Councilman Marty Small (D) (pictured right) and 13 others were indicted in September on various second-degree charges that they improperly handled messenger ballots during this year's Democratic primary. Small lost that election to Mayor Lorenzo Langford, who was re-elected to a four-year term in Tuesday's general election.

In some instances, the defendants opened sealed envelopes to see who the vote went to, then, if it wasn't for "the right person," they would destroy it, Deputy Attorney General Anthony Picione told Superior Court Judge James Isman. Some voters never even received their ballots or got the ballot the same time they were given the application, "Which, your honor knows, is not possible," Picione added.

Small is also director of after-school activities for the Atlantic City School Board. He was endorsed by the Atlantic City Democratic Committee. He was indicted in a similar case in 2005, but a jury eventually acquitted him of the third-degree charges.

New Jersey Attorney General Press Release (dated Sept 3, 2009)

From the Memory Banks
FORMER COUNCIL PRESIDENT SENTENCED
In December 2008, Former Atlantic City Council President Craig Callaway was sentenced to three years in prison after he admitted he masterminded the plot to get a rival councilman to quit. According CBSnews, "Callaway had come to dominate the all-Democrat city government." "His network of family and friends mastered the technique of soliciting and collecting absentee ballots in poor neighborhoods."

In October, 2006, a local DJ reported receiving a DVD that showed Councilman Robinson, 67, having sex with an underage prostitute -- who turned out to be 24 -- that he drove to a motel in his city-issued vehicle. An investigation led to criminal charges against Craig Callaway, his brothers Ronald and David, friend Floyd Tally, and incumbent Councilman John Schultz. They had hired the girl.

A jury convicted [David] Callaway and [Floyd] Tally last month in on invasion-of-privacy and conspiracy charges for trying to blackmail a former political ally, Atlantic City Councilman Eugene Robinson, into resigning his seat. They are set to be sentenced Dec. 10.

Former Councilman Callaway was already is serving a 40 month sentence for taking bribes from an FBI agent. His brother, Pete, was one of 11 New Jersey politicians arrested in a single day in September 2007.

ATLANTIC CITY MAYOR DISAPPEARS, THEN QUITS
In September 2007, Mayor Bob Levy dropped out of sight for two weeks. He reappeared and resigned, admitting he had been abusing painkillers and that he had lied about his Vietnam War service in order to increase his veterans' benefits checks. He resigned in October 2007.

Levy was sentenced to probation, and was ordered to pay back $25,000 in extra benefits he received as a result of falsely claiming he was in a special operations unit that worked behind enemy lines in Vietnam.

At the time of his resignation, four of his eight predecessors also had been arrested on corruption charges.