Rigged Election Conspiracy: 2nd Guilty Plea Entered

A second guilty plea in an election rigging scheme was entered Tuesday in White Plains Federal Court. Joon H. Kim, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York said Shalom Lamm, 57, of Bloomingburg, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to corrupt the electoral process in connection with an election in Bloomingburg.

“As he has now admitted, Shalom Lamm conspired to advance his real estate development project by corrupting the democratic process, specifically by falsely registering voters,” Kim said.

“The integrity of our electoral process must be inviolate at every level; our democracy depends on it,” he said.

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According to the allegations contained in the indictment:

Starting in 2006, SHALOM LAMM, a real estate developer, sought to build and sell real estate in Bloomingburg, New York. From these real estate development projects, LAMM and others hoped for and anticipated making hundreds of millions of dollars. But by late 2013, the first of their real estate developments had met local opposition, and still remained under construction and uninhabitable. When met with resistance, rather than seek to advance their real estate development project through legitimate means, LAMM and others instead decided to corrupt the democratic electoral process in Bloomingburg by falsely registering voters and paying bribes for voters who would help elect public officials favorable to their project.

SEE ALSO: Rigged-Election Conspiracy: Hudson Valley Developer Enters Plea

Specifically, in advance of an election in March 2014 for Mayor of Bloomingburg and other local officials, LAMM and others, and people working on their behalf, developed and worked on a plan to falsely register numerous people who were not entitled to register and vote in Bloomingburg because they actually lived elsewhere. Those people included some who never intended to live in Bloomingburg, some who had never kept a home in Bloomingburg, and indeed, some who had never set foot in Bloomingburg in their lives. LAMM and others took steps to cover up their scheme to register voters who did not actually live in Bloomingburg by, among other things, creating and back-dating false leases and placing items like toothbrushes and toothpaste in unoccupied apartments to make it seem as if the falsely registered voters lived there.

LAMM and others also bribed potential voters by offering payments, subsidies, and other items of value to get non-residents of Bloomingburg to register unlawfully and vote there.

The conspiracy charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Lamm is scheduled to be sentence Sept. 28.

Co-defendant Kenneth Nakdimen pleaded guilty May 25 to one count of conspiracy to corrupt the electoral process. His sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 9.

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