The third person charged in the election signature fraud scheme has turned himself in and has been arraigned.
According to the Michigan Attorney General's Office, Willie Reed turned himself in on Thursday voluntarily. He lives in Florida, the AG's office said.
Shawn Wilmoth, 36, Jamie Wilmoth, 36, and 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.
