Lake Effect News

By LORRAINE SWANSON

Editor

Opening statements in the trial of Anish Eapen and Armando Ramos, who face multiple felony counts of vote fraud stemming from the contentious 50^th Ward aldermanic race in 2007.

Ald. Berny Stone (50th Ward) in better days, with then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, whom Stone endorsed in the 2008 presidential race, with Devon Commissioner Majia Mustafa, and indicted, former Ward Superintendent Anish Eapen.

Both men waived their rights to a jury trial and opted instead for a bench trial before Cook County Judge Marcus Salone. The trial began Monday in the Cook County Criminal Courts building at 26^th and California. Eapen and Ramos have been charged with allegedly taking absentee ballots from mostly immigrant voters for the Feb. 27, 2009 general municipal election and the April 17, 2007 aldermanic runoff “so that an opportunity for fraudulent marking or tampering was created.”

Stone faced three challengers in the 2007 general election and was forced into a heated runoff against Naisy Dolar. Dolar has since moved out of Chicago and has opened a restaurant in Florida. Stone has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Eapen was suspended without pay from his $77,784-a-year job as Stone’s handpicked Chicago Streets and Sanitation Superintendent in January 2008 after he was indicted on two counts of official misconduct, three counts of absentee vote violations, and one count of mutilation of election materials.

Co-defendant Ramos faces two counts of absentee ballot violations and two counts of mutilation of election materials. Ramos is listed as being paid $2,000 for “services rendered” between March 20 and May 16, 2007 from Stone’s campaign fund according to financial disclosure statements filed at the Illinois State Board of Elections.

The indictments were the result of a joint investigation conducted by the Chicago Inspector General’s and Cook County State’s Attorney’s offices. If convicted, both men face prison terms of up to five years.

Five witnesses also testified on Monday for the state’s case, including four family members who reside in West Ridge’s 50^th Ward.

While politics and voting in Chicago is often a joke, Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Lynn McCarthy began, it’s no laughing matter.

“Vote early, vote often, ‘the Chicago way,’” McCarthy intoned. “Choosing leaders is a fundamental right, and many are still fighting for that right. In Illinois, voting comes with protected measures. So does absentee voting.”

McCarthy laid out the case of absentee vote tampering against Eapen and Ramos in her opening statement, much of it centered on the 34^th precinct in the 50^th Ward. She said witnesses’ testimony would demonstrate how Eapen and Ramos delivered absentee voting applications to voters’ homes and reappear within days of voters receiving their absentee ballots by mail. She described how both allegedly stood near voters as they completed their absentee ballots; then took the uncertified ballots with them to mail.

Both deliberately spread misinformation about the absentee voting process, telling voters that they wouldn’t have to venture out in cold weather to vote, McCarthy said.

“All the boxes checked on the absentee ballots [giving voters’ reasons for absentee voting] were that ‘they were absent from the county,’” McCarthy said. “Witnesses said they never checked that box.”

Eapen’s attorney, Tom Breen, portrayed his client as an “apolitical ward superintendent” who reluctantly accepted the position of precinct captain when another precinct captain died. Eapen’s role in the 2007 aldermanic campaign was distributing yard signs and absentee ballots. Breen said the only instruction Eapen received in being a precinct captain came from Alan Crown, secretary of Stone’s Democratic Club of the 50th Ward.

“I think you’ll see a thoroughly untrained individual who very reluctantly knocked on doors in February 2007 per Crown’s and Stone’s orders,” Breen said. “This is a not a veteran cigar-chomping precinct captain.”

Breen said that any education Eapen received on election law came from Stone and Crown. He further speculated why of all the wards in the city to be investigated, the focus was on Eapen “who is a bit player in this whole situation.”

Ramos’s attorney, Rohit Sahgal, portrayed Ramos as a pawn in a “vicious runoff election.” Saghal described Ramos’s humble beginnings, immigrating to the United States from Mexico in 1986 with his parents and siblings. When Ramos became a U.S. citizen in 2006, he wanted to do his civic duty by volunteering for Stone.

“He met Stone and a dangerous man, Alan Crown,” Sahgal said. “He got his assignments and did what he was told no questions asked. He never got training on what he was supposed to do… then out of nowhere, there’s an investigation in the 50^th Ward.”

Jeff Federke, assistant manager of the election support division for the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, said one of his division’s roles was the distribution and collection of absentee voting applications and ballots. He explained how the absentee voting system was designed to ensure that there is no ballot tampering.

All absentee voting applications and ballots are time-stamped. Voters must sign ballots and seal them in “certification” envelopes. Absentee voting applications and ballots that appear invalid or tampered with are rejected by the CBOE.

Breen asked if the CBOE offers election law training to precinct captains. Federke responded that it was not, but that staff is available to answer questions. Reports of requests for absentee ballots are also available in a binder for public viewing on the 6^th floor of the CBOE building.

Federke said there were 1,544 applications for absentee ballots in the 50^th Ward filed for the municipal election in February 2007, and 2,019 applications filed in the runoff election in April 2007. Asked if anyone from the 50^th Ward requested the absentee voting application list, Federke said he did not know offhand “but guess that they would have because many ward organizations requested them.”

The rest of the afternoon’s testimony focused on four members from an Indian family residing in West Ridge. Birbiana Panchigar could not identify Eapen in the courtroom, but the other witnesses picked Eapen out of a photo lineup shown to them by city and state investigators in Fall 2007, and pointed out Eapen, wearing a black jacket over a maroon shirt in the courtroom.

Birbiana Panchigar wasn’t sure if it was Eapen or Ramos who came to her door in February 2007 “because it was dark outside and I couldn’t see his face.”

Birbiana and her husband, Brabhad Panchigar, were both involved in caring for her husband’s mother, who lived next door with other family members and was gravely ill. Birbiana examined the blue absentee ballot application and said that it was her signature on the application but the handwriting on the rest of the application was “different.”

It was also noted that two different colored inks were used to complete the application. She said she did not check the box indicating that she would be “out of the county” on Feb. 27, 2007, the day of the municipal election.

Birbiana Panchigar said that her application for an absentee ballot for the April 2007 runoff was rejected by the CBOE because she sometimes changed her signature.  

Panchigar’s husband, Brabhad, testified that “people from Stone’s office” dropped off a business card from Eapen identifying him as the 34^th Ward precinct captain from the Democratic Club of the 50^th Ward.

He said that Eapen and another man visited his house in both February and April 2007, where he signed absentee ballot applications and gave both back to Eapen “blank.” Several days later after both visits, absentee ballots arrived in the mail. Eapen picked up both ballots after Brabhad Panchigar completed them.

The Panchigars denied telling Eapen that they might have to leave the country for India in the event that Brabhad’s mother died.

“You don’t really remember who picked up the ballots, do you?” Breen asked.

“It was [Eapen],” Brabhad Panchigar said.

Another family member, Hema Panchigar, 29, who resides in the same West Ridge townhome complex as Birbiana and Brabhad Panchigar, stated that she had never voted in an election prior to February 2007. She said when her absentee ballot arrived in the mail she didn’t know how to fill it out.

While her husband was completing his ballot, Eapen opened her ballot packet and completed it for her, , Hema Panchigar testified. She and other family members described Eapen visiting their home with a “a man about 55 years old wearing dark glasses” when dropping off or picking up absentee voting applications and ballots. Another time, Hema Panchingar said, Eapen came “with a young boy in his early 20s.”

Hema Panchigar told Breen that she wasn’t too vote, and appeared to have forgotten her testimony before a grand jury in 2008 that stated she had been registered to vote.

The final witness of the day, Jay Panchigar, 24, a college student, described how he was laid up with a broken ankle and using crutches during the winter of 2007. He stated that he was picked up by Eapen in a white SUV to be driven to Warren Park for early voting during the February municipal election.

Describing himself as “apolitical,” he voted early as a favor to his family because he thought Eapen “was a nice guy” who “got along with his family.” As he was driven to Warren Park, a middle-aged man who was not identified by witnesses was sitting in the back seat and recited “three numbers that he asked me to remember.”

The three numbers, Jay Panchigar said, were those of three candidates on the ballot. Jay said he dropped off outside the polling place and Eapen waited across the street. The student “had the three numbers in my head” while the other man walked him into the Warren Park polling place alone.

During the ride home, the other man asked Jay if he voted for the three candidates as instructed. “I voted for Stone,” Jay Pranchigar said.

Eapen also asked Jay Panchigar what he planned to do after he graduated from college. Jay told Eapen he wanted to be a teacher. Eapen handed him his City of Chicago business card and told Jay to call him if he needed a reference.

“Anish couldn’t get you a teaching job, could he?” Breen asked.

Jay Pranchigar also testified that he voted by absentee ballot in the April runoff. Eapen sat a few feet away while he completed his ballot at home, then handed his ballot to his mother. He said that Eapen was alone when he came to pick up his ballot.

Testimony in the 50^th Ward vote fraud trial will resume next week at 11 a.m. Monday and Tuesday, Nov. 16 and 17, in Room 706 in the Cook County Criminal Court building at 26^th and California.