347 disqualified mail-in ballots in criminal charges against Alex Mendez were not counted

PATERSON — The 347 mail-in voting ballots that have put Alex Mendez at risk of facing prison time were never counted as part of the councilman’s winning margin in Paterson’s 3rd Ward election in 2020, court documents show.

Those ballots drew immediate attention when a postal worker found the massive batch of Paterson votes inside a mailbox in the neighboring town of Haledon a week before election day that spring.

So the Passaic County Board of Elections disqualified the 347 votes “based on the circumstances of their discovery,” according to court records. Mendez still won a 245-vote victory, even without the ballots in question.

But the Paterson ballots found in the Haledon mailbox triggered an investigation by the state attorney general that resulted in criminal charges against Mendez about six weeks after the election, along with a new set of allegations filed days ago.

The new criminal complaints, dated Oct. 25, against Mendez, his wife and two campaign workers contain a far more detailed and expansive set of accusations, charges that state investigators say are supported by audio recordings, footage from a surveillance camera and an unidentified state’s witness from inside Mendez’s campaign who apparently has turned on the councilman.

Mendez repeatedly has said he and his election campaign did nothing wrong and that he will be vindicated when the case goes to trial, just as he has insisted ever since the first batch of charges were filed against him in June 2020.

Mendez on Friday morning told Paterson Press he has no idea who state investigators are talking about in the criminal complaints when they describe an unnamed witness who worked on his election campaign. But whoever it is, Mendez said, “must be going through something horrible in their life to make them go after innocent people like this.”

“Going after me, I understand that; I’m an elected official,” Mendez said. “But they’re coming after my wife, the mother of my children. It’s low, it’s horrible, it’s disgusting. This is horrible for my whole family.”

Mendez said his wife, Yohanny, does not wish to make any public comments on the case. He said she planned to hire a lawyer. The councilman said retaining attorneys will be a financial hardship for his two campaign workers charged in the case, Omar Ledesma and Iris Rigo. Mendez said Rigo is a volunteer at a city church who never got paid for the work she did to get him elected.

Ledesma did not respond to a message seeking his response to the charges. Rigo could not be reached for comment.

Court records:: Witness was with Paterson's Alex Mendez when he allegedly broke election law

What does the attorney general allege?

New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin's latest criminal complaints allege the Mendez campaign orchestrated a wholesale election fraud operation that offered unsuspecting people assistance by coming to their homes to collect their mail-in votes, then destroyed any ballots that were cast for opposing candidates and replaced them with bogus ballots supporting Mendez.

How did campaign workers get the blank ballots used as bogus replacements? Authorities said the alleged conspirators stole ballots from Paterson residents’ home mailboxes before those people could cast their votes.

The widespread scope of the new charges contrasts greatly with the original criminal complaints in 2020, which focused on alleged wrongdoing involving a handful of votes.

State officials have not disclosed exactly when the Mendez insider — whose identity has not been made public — allegedly began cooperating with the attorney general's investigation. The 2020 criminal complaints made no mention of a witness from within the Mendez camp.

The Attorney General's Office also has not revealed when it began contacting people whose names were on the 347 ballots that had been disqualified. Those interviews helped investigators expand the focus of their probe to other people in the Mendez campaign, said accounts in the criminal affidavits

What’s clear from the court documents is that the road leading to the new criminal complaint against Mendez started in Haledon. What remains unclear is why anyone went to Haledon to mail 347 ballots for the Paterson election.

The Attorney General's Office has said the United States Postal Inspection Service contacted state authorities in May 2020, right after the 347 Paterson ballots were found in the Haledon mailbox.

The criminal affidavit of probable cause against Rigo said state investigators subsequently obtained the voter certificates for those 347 ballots. One of those certificates was for Rigo’s vote, the affidavit said.

State investigators had a forensic document examiner review the handwriting on Rigo’s certificate and concluded that the same person who filled out hers also completed at least 30 other voter certificates for ballots found in the Haledon mailbox, the affidavit said. The certificates are supposed to be voters’ signed statements attesting to the validity of their confidential sealed ballots.

Investigators then began calling people whose names were on the ballots from the Haledon mailbox.

“At least one of those other voters stated to me that he did not live in Paterson in 2020 and that he did not vote in the 2020 election,” wrote the state detective who filled out the affidavit.

During those conversations with voters, state investigators learned about phone calls allegedly made by the Mendez camp, the affidavit said.

“Two witnesses stated to me that they received a telephone call from a female, who was unknown to them, associated with the campaign of Alex Mendez, offering to have someone collect their mail-in ballots,” the detective said in the affidavit. “A review of cellphone records associated with the accused,” the detective said, referring to Rigo, “show that the accused did call the two witnesses at the approximate time and date reported to me.”

The investigator said the unnamed witness in the Mendez camp stated that campaign workers went to homes to collect the ballots and bring them to headquarters. The affidavit for the charges against the councilman said the witness described accompanying Mendez himself while the candidate collected mail-in ballots, which authorities noted would be a violation of state law that forbids people running for public office to handle those ballots.

Election case expands: New election fraud charges against Paterson City Council President Alex Mendez and wife

Allegations focus on Mendez's wife

Multiple affidavits filed in the case alleged that the councilman’s wife oversaw the Mendez campaign headquarters’ handling of the collected ballots. The ballots are supposed to be sealed by voters, but not all of them were, the affidavits said.

“The witness stated that the accused inspected the collected mail-in ballots to ensure that they were votes for Alex Mendez,” said the affidavit for the charges against Yohanny Mendez. “The witness explained that if a mail-in ballot did not select Mendez, the accused destroyed the mail-in ballot and replaced it with another mail-in ballot selecting Mendez, which the witness personally observed.

“The witness explained to a detective that the Mendez campaign acquired blank mail-in ballots by taking them from voters’ mailboxes,” the affidavit continued.

The attorney general's affidavit against Mendez campaign worker Ledesma said he admitted taking ballots from mailboxes in the Heritage Place area, a townhouse development built more than a decade ago on the site of the notorious Alabama Avenue housing projects, which were demolished. The affidavit against Ledesma said he made that admission in a recorded statement — one that was seemingly recorded by the Mendez insider who is now cooperating with authorities.

Joe Malinconico is editor of Paterson Press. Email: editor@patersonpress.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Paterson NJ: Election fraud charges against Alex Mendez hinge on 347 ballots