Monmouth County Prosecutor Actively Investigating 4am Robocall
Despite waking up thousands of Monmouth County voters at 4am on primary day, the Bayshore Tea Party Group and the Bellew Brigade have apparently not lost any sleep over their crushing defeat last week. The architects of the 20%-80% defeat in the Monmouth County and LD 13 GOP primaries have endorsed Dr. Alieta Eck in the Special U.S. Senate Primay and are angling to run that campaign.
Congratulations Steve Lonegan!
Neither BTPG nor Leigh-Ann Bellew’s campaign have admitted to commissioning the 4am robocall on June 4 that announced it was being made on behalf of Senator Joe Kyrillos , Assembly Members Amy Handlin and Declan O’Scanlon and faked the caller ID to a number belonging to the Monmouth County Republican Organization. They are exercising their right to remain silent to the extent that they have yet to congratulate their opponents.
MMM first reported the call (click here to listen) and that it appears to have been recorded by the same person who recorded Bellew’s voice mail greeting. (Click here to listen to Bellew’s voice mail greeting.)
Kyrillos and O’Scanlon publicly accused the Bellew campaign of making the call. Monmouth County GOP Chairman John Bennett lodged a complaint with the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office. Bennett said yesterday that he will not let up on pursuing prosecution of the dirty trick.
Bayshore Tea Party Group co-founder Barbara Gonzalez complained about this website on facebook, saying she was going to report its owner to the FBI because he finds out, and acts on, what she is writing about on the social media site without the help of the NSA or the Obama Administration.
Charles Webster, spokesperson for the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office, confirmed that there is an active investigation into the 4am robocall.
Webster was not at liberty to discuss the investigation, so MMM’s investigative team got to work to find more evidence of the call’s origin.
Bellew has not submitted all of her required campaign finance disclosures to the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, but the disclosures she did make in May report disbursements to a Frisco, Texas firm, Digital Politics, LLC that coincide with known robocalls of the Bellew campaign. An exhaustive five minute investigation revealed that Digital Politics was formed in January of this year. Its mailing address is a UPS mail drop.
Our investigator called the UPS Store on Eldorado Parkway in Frisco to verify the address for Digital Politics, LLC. “Do you have a contact name?” the nice person who answered the phone asked. Quick on his feet, our investigator took a wild guess, “Dwayne Horner.” “Yes, the address is 2831 El Dorado Parkway, Suite 103-176, Frisco, Texas 75034.” Just as our investigator suspected.
Horner was Bellew’s campaign manager and spokesperson.
The New Jersey Democratic Party was fined $42,000 for making fraudulent robocalls in the 2009 gubernatorial election. Among Republicans, Kevin Collins plead guilty, paid a $1000 fine and received a year on probation for violating the Fair Campaign Practices Act with a fraudulent robo call in a 2009 legislative primary. More serious charges against Collins were dropped in plea negotiations.
Eck would be advised not to rely too much on the Bellew Brigade and BTPG. The proceeds of the bake sales and Tikini carwashes might be used for legal fees.
aha … going across state lines now should bring in the FBI over this clear attempt at voter suppression.
Who is going to jail and for how long?
And does a bankruptcy allow one to avoid a fine?
Art, your disdain for citizen activists fighting a corrupt political establishment is concerning. You are relishing the defeat of the citizens’ actions and lauding the crumb buns that inhabit the establishment. In case you haven’t noticed, the political elites, especially Dems but includes GOP are bankrupting/stealing/lying/suffocating our nation.
I am sad, I thought you were better than that.
Mark,
I have been a citizen activist since long before you woke up and got off the couch in 2009.
That you insist on keeping your head in the sand by refusing to listen to Bellew’s recordings and that you apparently condone waking up people at 4am and fraud is what is really disconcerting.
You are alleging corruption, yet you refuse to confront it in your own camp.
Art,
In regards to your reply to Mark. It would appear to me that you are the one making all sorts of assumptions. And in fact if there really is an investigation, and if it should turn out that no one you are accusing is a part of it. Then everyone you name in these despicable accusations should turn your house into the new Tea Party HQ.
Then lets see how fast your 3 GOP candidates and the County GOP are ready to take you into their home.
I’m no lawyer, but something tells me you should be very careful.
Investigative staff? “lol” you mean your one man band who plays out of tune?
You’re right, pony, you are no lawyer.
Glad you enjoyed my humor.
I’m shocked the prosecutor’s office confirmed that there was an ongoing investigation. Most prosecutorial agencies usually don’t confirm or deny such ongoing investigations–if there are any at all.
Don’t be shocked. Call Webster yourself, like I did, and verify.
Wow Art you are getting hammered and wrongfully so. He is just reporting the facts ladies and gentlemen. If you don’t like it, start your own blog and write frivilous stories.
[…] call. Both Bellew and Horner denied involvement. He said he would ask them again today, following MMM’s report that the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office is investigating the […]
Art, poor judgment saying that I just got involved in ’09.
My activism goes back to the late 60’s, counter-demonstrating Marxist students in Greenwich Village, NYC bro. In ’02 I ran for Middletown Bd of Ed and put myself out there for 5 of the 6 public venues.
We have disdain for idiots who don’t know what they are doing, yet wrap themselves up in the cloak of Citizen Patriots trying to make people believe they are better than them.
JCG
You’ve proved elsewhere that you know so little, so put a sock in it; lest we take away your feed bag and send you back to the stall.
JCG
JCG, other than the fact there were no mis-spellings in your tirade, get your feet back on the ground and join us, please, in that world called REALITY. WTF are you talking about? Please share those fragmented thoughts with the rest of us.
Get over yourself. I owe you nothing other than if you can’t understand those simple thoughts above, you are the one that needs to get real.
So, “whatever”
Come to think of it, not only does it seem that you haven’t listened to the audio of both robo calls; but it don’t recall you apologizing for those remarks about Jews & WW II.
So again, no one owes you an explanation. Figure it out for yourself since you are so special.
JCG
Since law enforcement is likely to be able to figure out who was behind these calls, I’m a little bit surprised that nobody or group came forward and said the calls were placed at that time in error rather than at 4 PM.
It was more than a timing problem since the Kryillos, O’Scanlon, Handlin committee did not make the call. So it is still a fraudulent so why admit to it.
fraudulent call