Ex-police chief, city official orchestrated vote buying scheme in Louisiana, feds say
Two officials from a small town in eastern Louisiana are facing federal charges after prosecutors said they orchestrated an elaborate vote-buying scheme during the 2016 election.
A grand jury indicted Jerry Trabona, 73, and Kristian Hart, 49, on charges in the Eastern District of Louisiana on Nov. 18, federal court filings show. The indictment was unsealed on Monday, Dec. 13.
Trabona was the police chief in Amite City, Louisiana, from 2005 to 2020, prosecutors said, and Hart is a current city council member. Neither could be reached for comment on Wednesday, Dec. 15, by McClatchy News and information regarding their defense attorneys was not immediately available.
Trabona left office to run for mayor in 2020 but lost, WWL reported.
Amite City — population 4,400 — is about 20 miles south of the Mississippi border and 60 miles northeast of Baton Rouge.
The town is governed by a mayor and five city council members, all of whom are elected every four years, according to the town website.
In 2016, the U.S. president’s office and seats in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives were on the ballot in addition to local city races. Trabona was up for re-election and Hart was running for a seat on the Amite City Council, prosecutors said.
With the help of at least six other people, the pair is accused of buying their votes as early as January 2016.
The government said Trabona and Hart coordinated via telephone and in person with so-called vote buyers, who they reportedly gave cash to purchase votes. The alleged scheme included driving voters to their polling locations and paying them to vote for certain candidates.
Trabona is also accused of having voters sign a contract that stated they wouldn’t “make any overture of any kind to any voter or other person of financial award or other benefit in exchange for a vote.”
Prosecutors said the phony agreement was designed to hide the true nature of the payments.
Trabona sometimes met with the vote buyers in his office at the police station, where he handed them $500 checks with which to purchase the votes, according to the indictment. He also reportedly gave them his candidate number and sample ballots.
Hart gave a vote buyer at least $300 in cash on one occasion, prosecutors said. In a separate instance, he gave another person $200 in rolled up $20 bills from the center console of his truck.
Voters were given between $10 and $20 to cast their ballots for Trabona and Hart, according to the indictment. Prosecutors said the vote buyers were often allowed to keep what remained of the cash.
During the primaries held on Nov. 8, 2016, election results show Trabona — a Democrat — secured 68.8% of the vote with more than 1,200 ballots cast in his favor. His opponent received just under 32%.
Hart, also a Democrat, was running against three other Democrats and an unaffiliated candidate for District 1 on the city council. He pulled away with 44% of the votes to advance to the general election on Dec. 10, 2016, which he won with 59% of the vote.
Trabona and Hart were indicted on charges of conspiring to buy votes and multiple counts of buying votes, prosecutors said.
If convicted, they face up to five years in prison on each count.
The indictment follows guilty pleas by other residents in Tangipahoa Parish accused of buying votes during the 2016 election. Prosecutors said 68-year-old Sidney Smith of Amite City and 64-year-old Calvin Batiste of Independence pleaded guilty to conspiring to buy votes on Nov. 29 and Dec. 8, respectively.
