16 Pro-Trump ‘False Electors’ Charged With Felonies In Michigan

 Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced on Tuesday that 16 residents in the state have been charged with felonies over their alleged role in a scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The defendants allegedly met on December 14, 2020, and signed their names to multiple official documents certifying that they were the “duly elected and qualified electors for President and Vice President of the United States of America for the State of Michigan,” according to Michigan officials.

The 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 statement added.

Each of the defendants was 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, and,
• Two counts of Election Law Forgery, a 5-year felony.

The 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 and Kent Vanderwood, 69, of Wyoming.

 

Nessel said that she 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.”

“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.”

Nessel said that the investigation was “ongoing” and that more charges might be forthcoming against “additional defendants.”