DETROIT (AP/WXYZ) — Three people were charged with forgery and other crimes in an investigation of phony petition signatures that spoiled the candidacies of five Republicans who were running for Michigan governor in 2022, prosecutors said Thursday.
Shawn Wilmoth, 36, Jamie Wilmoth, 36, and Willie Reed, 37, each face more than 20 charges in a suburban Detroit court, including election forgery and conducting a criminal enterprise.
The robust race for governor, with nearly a dozen Republican candidates at one point, was "just irresistible to people who wanted to commit fraud," Attorney General Dana Nessel said.
Candidates needed 15,000 signatures from voters to get on the GOP primary ballot.
"These signature-collection firms were being paid nine, 10, 11, 12 dollars per signature," Nessel said. "There's nothing that stops these signature-collection firms from hiring people who were convicted felons. You have every incentive to get as many signatures as possible."
Former Detroit police Chief James Craig and millionaire businessman Perry Johnson were considered to be strong candidates for the Republican nomination for governor, but they were barred from the August ballot.
Election officials found their petitions were rife with bogus signatures and, as a result, they didn't have enough valid ones to qualify. Three more candidates were also knocked off the ballot.
"I want to applaud the work by Attorney General Nessel and her team. They were diligent," said Craig. "This was a crime. A criminal enterprise. But A.G. Nessel didn't make this into a partisan politic issue. She saw it as a crime. She investigated as such, and we've got an outcome that is highly favorable."
"When you have things like that, they can it can impact the entire government. It doesn't matter whether you're talking about the state, federal level - you have things like that, the impact is gigantic," said Johnson. "It doesn't matter which side it's on. If it's on the Republican or the Democrat side, when you have something like that, that literally artificially flavors the entire election process, it's catastrophic."
Nessel said three Detroit-area judicial candidates were also victims. No candidate was personally accused of knowingly submitting fraudulent petitions.
The Wilmoths were due in court Thursday afternoon while authorities still were searching for Reed. The defendants could not immediately be reached for comment, and online court records list no defense attorneys who could be asked about the charges.
Business and campaign records show Shawn Wilmoth was affiliated with First Choice Contracting LLC, a signature-collection company that was paid more than $200,000 by at least two disqualified candidates, the Detroit Free Press reported.
After the signature scandal, Tudor Dixon emerged as the Republican nominee for governor but lost the general election to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Johnson lately has his eyes on a bigger prize: He's been campaigning in Iowa for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
According to WFLA-TV, Shawn Wilmoth released a statement that reads in part:
In 2011, I was convicted of 2 counts of false statements on required form. I was given 3 years’ probation for the conviction and have not been in trouble for anything since the incident. I often work with judges, lawyers, prosecutors and other members of law enforcement in my line of work. If I was doing something illegal or not by the book in some way, I wouldn’t still be in business.
I was accused of knowingly hiring individuals with felonies and directing them to circulate petitions even though they were not legally eligible to do so under Virginia law. The law that I was accused of violating has since been overturned as unconstitutional since my conviction.
The truth is, there are many people that make a once in a lifetime mistake and that shouldn’t make them a criminal for life. Due to the nature of my conviction, I have to go the extra mile in everything I do so that people don’t question my integrity. I am often accused of wrongdoing by my competitors who work in the same industry because they don’t like competition. I have a long list of happy clients and successful projects because my work speaks for itself. Anyone who has worked with me would never question the legitimacy of my work.”
