Lamm
BLOOMINGBURG – A federal grand jury has indicted three men, including
developer Shalom Lamm, on charges of conspiracy to corrupt the electoral
process. (Read the indictment
here.)
The voter fraud is alleged to have occurred in advance of a March 2014
election for mayor of the Village of Bloomingburg and other local officials.
Lamm, Kenneth Nakdimen and Volvy Smilowitz were charged with working on
a plan to falsely register numerous people who were not entitled to register
and vote in Bloomingburg because they lived elsewhere.
According to the indictment, some of those who registered “never
intended to live in Bloomingburg, people who had never kept a home in
Bloomingburg, and indeed, some people who had never even set foot in Bloomingburg
in their lives.”
The men are also charged with bribing potential voters to get them to
unlawfully register and vote. Lamm agreed to pay an individual $500 for
every voter that the person procured, and Lamm and Nardimen’s real
estate company ultimately paid the individual more than $30,000 per month
for his efforts,” it is alleged.
The indictment claims Lamm and Nakdimen, who had planned on developing
several residential housing projects including a 396-unit townhouse project,
plotted to take over Bloomingburg’s local government because of
its vulnerability given its small size. The village, the smallest one
in the state, has a population of 420 people.
As part of their scheme, Lamm, Nakdimen and Smilowitz took steps to give
the false appearance that unoccupied properties in the village were being
lived in my registrants to legitimize their false registrations. They
placed personal items in the properties including toothpaste and toothbrushes,
and placed soda, beer, non-perishable snacks in the apartments and clothes
in closets, posted named at the properties and picked up mail from mailboxes
at properties.
“In pursuit of millions of dollars in profits from a real estate
development project, the defendants allegedly hatched a cynical ploy to
corrupt the electoral process in Bloomingburg,” said US Attorney
Preet Bharara. “As alleged, to get public officials supportive of
their development project elected to local government, the defendants
concocted a scheme to falsely register voters who did not live in Bloomingburg,
including some who had never even set foot there. And to cover up their
voter fraud scheme, the defendants allegedly back-dated fake leases and
even placed toothpaste and toothbrushes in empty apartments to make them
appear occupied by the falsely registered voters. Profit-driven corruption
of democracy cannot be allowed to stand no matter who does it or where
it happens,” Bharara said.
