New Bloomingburg indictment

FRITZ MAYER
Posted 6/6/18

WHITE PLAINS, NY — Developer Shalom Lamm pleaded guilty in December 2017 and was sentenced to 10 months in prison. Kenneth Nakdiman pleaded guilty in June 2017 and received six months in …

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New Bloomingburg indictment

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WHITE PLAINS, NY — Developer Shalom Lamm pleaded guilty in December 2017 and was sentenced to 10 months in prison. Kenneth Nakdiman pleaded guilty in June 2017 and received six months in prison. The third man charged in the voter fraud scheme is Volvy “Zev” Smilowitz, and he has not pleaded guilty.

On May 17 a federal grand jury filed a superseding indictment against Smilowitz, charging him with 25 counts related to voter fraud.  Lamm and Nakdiman are not named in the indictment but two real estate developers involved in the scheme are referred to as co-conspirator one (CC-1) and co-conspirator two (CC-2.)

The indictment revisits much of the history of the scandal now well-known to the residents of the Village of Bloomingburg. The real estate investors bought up a lot of property in the town, constructed the controversial Villages at Chestnut Ridge Development, and helped illegally register voters to cast ballots in the Bloomingburg election in 2014. The alleged purpose of the voting fraud was to elect village officials who would support the developer’s plans for creating housing for a Hasidic community in the village.

The indictment says in advance of those elections, “CC-1, CC-2, and Smilowitz, together with agents who were working for them including employees of a public relations firm that CC-1 and CC-2 had retained, submitted to the Sullivan County Board of Elections signed, sworn voter registration forms that were false. The voter registration forms were false because the registrants did not live at the addresses listed on the form. The false addresses were for properties owned by CC-1 and CC-2 that were unoccupied, unleased, under construction, and/or uninhabitable, and properties that CC-1 and CC-2 did not yet own and that were occupied by others. The voter registration forms were also false because the registrants swore and affirmed that they had lived in the voting district for 30 days prior to the election, when in fact they had not.” 

The indictment accuses the three men of creating “sham” back-dated leases; posting the name of false voters at the multi-unit apartments they owned and in some cases listed the names alphabetically.

The indictment also says the trio attempted to cover their tracks.  It says, “Aware that their voter registration scheme would likely draw scrutiny, CC-1, CC-2, and Smilowitz attempted to create the false appearance that their actions were undertaken in good faith reliance on the advice of legal counsel. But they did not rely in good faith on the advice of legal counsel, as they neither made full and accurate disclosure of the voter registration scheme to legal counsel, nor acted in accordance with reasonable legal advice.

“CC-1 and CC-2 initially obtained legal advice that to qualify to vote in Bloomingburg, a person had to ‘manifest an intent, coupled with physical presence [in Bloomingburg], without any aura of a sham. In simple terms, to establish residency in the Village, an individual must live in the Village of Bloomingburg and demonstrate an intent to stay there on a long-term basis.’

“Shortly thereafter, they retained new legal counsel, who instead provided them a list of ‘indica [sic] of residence,’ including, among other things, ‘leases,’ ‘library card,’ ‘bank accounts,’ and ‘postal change of address forms.’”

white plains, Shalom Lamm

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