By: Richard L. Smith
Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin announced that the Paterson City Council President, Alex Mendez, has been brought up on new charges in connection with an election fraud case after investigators determined the defendant personally collected ballots and oversaw the fraudulent mailing of ballots. At the same time, members of his campaign stole ballots from residential mailboxes and discarded several that did not cast a vote for their candidate.
It is also alleged that defendants tampered with witnesses to avoid prosecution.
Mendez, 48, of Paterson, New Jersey, who was first indicted on election fraud charges in 2021, is facing additional charges along with several alleged co-conspirators: his wife, Yohanny Mendez, 48, as well as Omar Ledesma, 35, and Iris Rigo, 38, all Paterson residents. The charges are the result of an investigation by the Attorney General’s Office of Public Integrity and Accountability (OPIA).
“The defendants are accused of attempting to rig an election in their favor and to deprive the voters of Paterson of having their voices heard,” said Attorney General Platkin. “The functioning of democracy relies on voters’ trust that their votes count and those votes determine the outcomes of elections.”
“We allege that Mendez and his associates unlawfully collected ballots and tampered with ballots to give him an unfair edge in the race for the 3rd Ward seat on the Paterson City Council,” said Thomas Eicher, the Executive Director of the Office of Public Integrity and Accountability. “He then allegedly set about undermining our investigation into his and his campaign workers’ unlawful activities. I’m grateful for the many additional months of work the investigative team invested in pursuing evidence of potential witness tampering. Their efforts uncovered more illegal conduct by these defendants, culminating in these new charges.”
The initial OPIA investigation began when the U.S. Postal Inspection Service alerted the Attorney General’s Office that hundreds of mail-in ballots for the May 2020 Paterson municipal election were found in a mailbox in the neighboring municipality of Haledon. Hundreds of mail-in ballots were also found in a mailbox in Paterson at a time when all voting was being conducted via vote-by-mail because of COVID-19 safety precautions.
It is alleged that prior to the May 2020 election, while he was a candidate seeking to represent the 3rd Ward, Mendez personally collected several mail-in ballots from households in that section of Paterson in violation of the Vote-By-Mail Law. For several days, Mendez and his associates allegedly collected ballots in the 3rd Ward.
New Jersey allows a voter to give a completed ballot to a “bearer,” who must complete the bearer certification on the ballot envelope before returning the ballot on behalf of the voter to the county board of elections. Under state law, a candidate in an election is never permitted to serve as a ballot bearer on behalf of other voters in the district in which he is a candidate.
It is alleged that many of the ballots that the campaign collected were not sealed by voters when they were turned over. It is further alleged that after the ballots were brought to Mendez’s campaign headquarters, they were examined to see if the ballots were votes for Mendez. If the ballot did not select Mendez as the candidate of choice, his wife, Yohanny Mendez, allegedly would destroy the ballot and replace it with another mail-in ballot that did select Mendez for the council seat.
The investigation found that the blank ballots used as replacement ballots were obtained by stealing ballots out of voters’ mailboxes. Mendez associate Omar Ledesma is accused of taking ballots out of mailboxes in specific neighborhoods and apartment buildings in Paterson that were known to have a large number of residents supporting Mendez’s primary opponent in the election, former Paterson Councilman William McKoy.
It is also alleged that if a voter turned over an incomplete ballot, campaign workers would complete it.
It is alleged that on or about May 5, 2020, Mendez personally observed from his wife’s vehicle as a large, heavy bag, completely filled with ballots, was emptied into the Haledon postal box prior to the election.
About one week later, Mendez’s campaign attorney filed a letter with the Passaic County Board of Elections, urging the board to count the Haledon ballots, even though Mendez knew they had been unlawfully collected and submitted to the county.
State law indicates that a person serving as a ballot bearer can only do so for a maximum of three ballots each, or five if the individual is bearing ballots of immediate family members in the same household.
It is further alleged that after Mendez was indicted on February 24, 2021, on charges of election fraud and other offenses related to the May 12, 2020, Paterson election, Alex Mendez, Yohanny Mendez, and others, were captured in an audio recording agreeing to attempt to contact the witnesses against Alex Mendez and to propose a new statement that each witness could give that would be helpful to the defense.
The suspects are charged as follows:
Alex Mendez, 48, of Paterson
• Conspiracy to commit election fraud (2nd degree)
• Fraud in casting mail-in vote (3rd degree)
• Unauthorized possession of ballots (3rd degree)
• Tampering with public records (3rd degree)
• Falsifying or tampering with records (4th degree)
• Forgery (3rd degree)
• Conspiracy/tampering with or fabricating physical evidence (4th degree)
• Soliciting or procuring or assisting unlawful registration and other violations of election law (3rd degree)
• Conspiracy to commit witness tampering (3rd degree)
Yohanny Mendez, 48, of Paterson
• Conspiracy to commit election fraud (2nd degree)
• Fraud in casting mail-in vote (3rd degree)
• Soliciting or procuring or assisting unlawful registration and other violations of election law (3rd degree)
• Conspiracy to commit witness tampering (3rd degree)
Omar Ledesma, 35, of Paterson
• Conspiracy to commit election fraud (2nd degree)
• Fraud in casting mail-in vote (3rd degree)
• Unauthorized possession of ballots (3rd degree)
• Fraudulent voting/interference with election (3rd degree)
• Tampering with public records (3rd degree)
• Falsifying or tampering with records (4th degree)
• Forgery (3rd degree)
• Soliciting or procuring or assisting unlawful registration and other violations of election law (3rd degree)
Iris Rigo, 38, of Paterson
• Conspiracy to commit election fraud (2nd degree)
• Fraud in casting mail-in vote (3rd degree)
• Unauthorized possession of ballots (3rd degree)
• Tampering with public records (3rd degree)
• Falsifying or tampering with records (4th degree)
• Forgery (3rd degree)
• Willfully suppressing records (3rd degree)
• Soliciting or procuring or assisting unlawful registration and other violations of election law (3rd degree)
The case is being prosecuted by Deputy Attorney General Eric Cohen of the Office of Public Integrity and Accountability under the supervision of Deputy Chief of the OPIA Corruption Bureau Jeffrey Manis, Chief Peter Lee, OPIA Deputy Director Anthony Picione, and Director Eicher.
The investigation received critical assistance from Mary Catherine Ryan, the former Chief Assistant Prosecutor of the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office and current Assistant Attorney General.
