City council candidate tells election board: 'never my intent to commit … election fraud.'

Bloomington City Council candidate David Wolfe Bender told the local election board Thursday that he may have made a mistake in his candidate paperwork but certainly did not intend to commit any crime.

At least one of the board members wasn’t buying his story and clashed repeatedly with Bender’s attorney. Here’s what Bender said, what the board did and what’s next.

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What are the allegations against Bender?

Bender this year filed to become the Democratic nominee for District 6 of the Bloomington City Council. After receiving a complaint, the Monroe County Election Board determined in March it has substantial reason to believe Bender does not live where his candidate filing says he does and he is therefore ineligible to run for the District 6 seat. Filing fraudulent election materials, such as a voter registration, is a felony.

What’s Bender’s defense?

Bender said Thursday that he signed a sublease with a friend, Will Sinciline, in December, for a property at 304 E. 16th St., in District 6, where Bender planned to live over the summer. At the time, he lived in District 4. Based on his intent to live in District 6 over the summer and beyond, Bender said he filed his candidacy paperwork. However, he said he later learned that Sinciline was not authorized to sublet.

“It certainly was never my intent to commit … election fraud,” Bender said.

Bender gave copies of the lease agreement to the board members, with Sinciline’s name redacted. Bender said he didn’t want his friend to become embroiled in the case. However, he revealed Sinciline’s name during the hearing when pressed by election board member John Fernandez, an attorney and former Bloomington mayor.

Sinciline could not be reached Thursday.

Bender's attorney, Allison Chopra, said that Indiana law has special rules governing the residency of students and said students may register either the address where they live when they attend college or the address where they live when they do not attend the school. Chopra said the law allowed Bender to register at the address where he intended to reside in the summer.

“That’s something you can do in a forward-looking fashion,” she said.

The board’s chair, Donavan Garletts, a Republican, said, “That is an incredibly loose interpretation of that code.”

He said part of the law allows students to register where they normally live, such as with their parents, or where they go to school — “not moving somewhere in the same city in the summer that you’ve never lived before.”

Bender said based on his understanding of the law, he could file based on where he planned to live after the spring semester.

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” he said.

Chopra, a former city council member and former prosecutor, told the election board that for a prosecutor to convict Bender of election fraud, she would have to prove that he knowingly filed a false report, and the evidence just doesn't show that.

"I don't think that you could ever prove, and the evidence doesn't show, that he knew that (the forms) were materially false or fictitious," she said. "Could he have made a mistake? Maybe."

Who owns the property and what does the landlord say?

Justin Fox, who co-owns and manages the property on 16th Street, said he does not know Bender and had no knowledge of him ever living at the house.

Fox said the three occupants of the property are allowed, with Fox’s permission, to sublet the property, though he said students sometimes sublet rooms without his knowledge or permission.

How did the election board weigh in?

Reactions from board members to Bender’s testimony Tuesday was mixed.

Garletts questioned Bender about when he knew he would not be able to live at the 16th Street property and why, even after knowing that, he filed a campaign finance report six weeks later that indicated he would live in there.

Bender said he merely confirmed on the campaign finance form that he was still a candidate in the race, as he had not withdrawn.

“I’m in over my head on this stuff, but, like, I don’t know what else I could have done,” he said.

Chopra, then told the board it was not appropriate to discuss the campaign finance form, as neither she nor Bender were informed there may be problems with it.

Garletts replied, “With all due respect, I’ll decide what I want to ask and what’s appropriate.”

Turning to Bender, Garletts said, “To answer your question, David, there were a thousand things that you could have done other than stay silent.”

Where is District 6?

District 6, in the north-central part of town, is L-shaped and reaches from the corner of Walnut and Third streets in the southwest to Jefferson Street in the east and 17th Street in the north. District borders were redrawn last year, and the district had no incumbent in the primary in May. Bender was the sole candidate.

Is Bender staying in the race?

When the complaint against him was filed, Bender initially said he would withdraw right after the primary, as he felt his candidacy would become a distraction, which would take away from the good that he planned to accomplish as a council member.

However, he has since said he made that plan based on bad advice from a prior attorney and he had changed his mind and planned to stay in the race.

Bender on Thursday repeated an apology for his initial evasiveness and the chaos it caused. He said he will soon live at a different address in District 6.

He also said he would withdraw from the race if he could not get election filings corrected.

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What started the investigation?

The Indiana University student newspaper, the Indiana Daily Student, where Bender formerly worked, published a story on Feb. 17, in which residents at the address that Bender listed on election paperwork said Bender did not live there.

The story prompted Monroe County Republican Party Vice Chair Bill Ellis, an Ellettsville town council member, to file a complaint with the election board.

What did the board do Thursday

The election board — Garletts, Fernandez and Nicole Browne, who also is the Monroe County clerk — unanimously on Thursday voted to forward the case to the prosecutor’s office. Fernandez said some of the information he received gave him pause, adding answers to some critical questions remain. However, he said the prosecutor’s office was better equipped than the election board to find answers to those questions.

The election board also voted 2-1, with Fernandez opposed, to forward the information to the Indiana Attorney General’s office. Garletts said he wanted that office to be aware because it could seek an injunction to stop Bender’s candidacy.

“I believe with every ounce of my being that you are not a candidate,” Garletts told Bender.

What’s next

County Attorney Jeff Cockerill said he plans to provide the information to the prosecutor’s office early next week and then will determine how to pass the information to the attorney general’s office.

Boris Ladwig can be reached at bladwig@heraldt.com.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: City council candidate: 'never my intent to commit ... election fraud'