Agriculture

47 People Charged For Stealing $250M In Minnesota Food Scheme

The defendants are accused of defrauding and stealing from a federal program that provides meals to low-income children.

Federal authorities have charged 47 people in what they’re calling the largest fraud scheme yet to take advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic by stealing and defrauding the government of $250 million.

Prosecutors say the defendants created companies that claimed to be offering food to tens of thousands of children across Minnesota, then sought reimbursement for those meals through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food nutrition programs. Prosecutors say few meals were actually served, and the defendants used the money to buy luxury cars, property and jewelry.

“This $250 million is the floor,” Andy Luger, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota, said at a news conference. “Our investigation continues.”

Many of the companies that claimed to be serving food were sponsored by a nonprofit called Feeding Our Future, which submitted the companies’ claims for reimbursement. Feeding Our Future’s founder and executive director, Aimee Bock, was among those indicted, and authorities say she and others in her organization submitted the fraudulent claims for reimbursement and received kickbacks.

Bock’s attorney, Kenneth Udoibok, said the indictment “doesn’t indicate guilt or innocence.” He said he wouldn’t comment further until seeing the indictment.

In an interview in January after law enforcement searched her home and offices, among other sites, Bock denied stealing money and said she never saw evidence of fraud.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Justice made prosecuting pandemic-related fraud a priority. The department has already taken enforcement actions related to more than $8 billion in suspected pandemic fraud, including bringing charges in more than 1,000 criminal cases involving losses in excess of $1.1 billion.

Federal officials repeatedly described the alleged fraud as “brazen,” and decried that it involved a program intended to feed children who needed help during the pandemic. Michael Paul, the agent in charge of the Minneapolis FBI office, called it “an astonishing display of deceit.”

Luger said the government was billed for more than 125 million fake meals, with some defendants making up names for children by using an online random name generator. He displayed one form for reimbursement that claimed a site served exactly 2,500 meals each day Monday through Friday — with no children ever getting sick or otherwise missing from the program.

“These children were simply invented,” Luger said.

He said the government has so far recovered $50 million in money and property and expects to recover more.

The defendants in Minnesota face multiple counts, including conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering and bribery. Luger said some of them were arrested Tuesday morning.

According to court documents, the alleged scheme targeted the USDA’s federal child nutrition programs, which provide food to low-income children and adults. In Minnesota, the funds are administered by the state Department of Education, and meals have historically been provided to kids through educational programs, such as schools or day care centers.

The sites that serve the food are sponsored by public or nonprofit groups, such as Feeding Our Future. The sponsoring agency keeps 10% to 15% of the reimbursement funds as an administrative fee in exchange for submitting claims, sponsoring the sites and disbursing the funds.

But during the pandemic, some of the standard requirements for sites to participate in the federal food nutrition programs were waived. The USDA allowed for-profit restaurants to participate, and allowed food to be distributed outside educational programs. The charging documents say the defendants exploited such changes “to enrich themselves.”

The documents say Bock oversaw the scheme and that she and Feeding Our Future sponsored the opening of nearly 200 federal child nutrition program sites throughout the state, knowing that the sites intended to submit fraudulent claims. “The sites fraudulently claimed to be serving meals to thousands of children a day within just days or weeks of being formed and despite having few, if any staff and little to no experience serving this volume of meals,” according to the indictments.

One example described a small storefront restaurant in Willmar, in west-central Minnesota, that typically served only a few dozen people a day. Two defendants offered the owner $40,000 a month to use his restaurant, then billed the government for some 1.6 million meals through 11 months of 2021, according to one indictment. They listed the names of around 2,000 children — nearly half of the local school district’s total enrollment — and only 33 names matched actual students, the indictment said.

Feeding Our Future received nearly $18 million in federal child nutrition program funds as administrative fees in 2021 alone, and Bock and other employees received additional kickbacks, which were often disguised as “consulting fees” paid to shell companies, the charging documents said.

According to an FBI affidavit unsealed earlier this year, Feeding Our Future received $307,000 in reimbursements from the USDA in 2018, $3.45 million in 2019 and $42.7 million in 2020. The amount of reimbursements jumped to $197.9 million in 2021.

Court documents say the Minnesota Department of Education was growing concerned about the rapid increase in the number of sites sponsored by Feeding Our Future, as well as the increase in reimbursements.

The department began scrutinizing Feeding Our Future’s site applications more carefully, and denied dozens of them. In response, Bock sued the department in November 2020, alleging discrimination, saying the majority of her sites were based in immigrant communities. That case has since been dismissed.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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Carbon Farming Is A New Way For Farmers To Make Extra Money

By Alexa Liacko
September 19, 2022

Thousands of farms had to shut down last year due to low profits. Now there’s a new way for farmers to make money.

It’s getting tougher and tougher to survive as a family on a farm these days because the cost of doing business is just getting so high. But there’s a new, environmentally friendly way of farming that’s putting thousands of dollars back into farmers pockets.

Since 1926, Todd Olander’s family has worked this land to make a living.

“We grow corn, alfalfa, barley, wheat, rye. I am the last remaining farmer that’s left out of everyone,” said Olander.

He’s trying to keep his family’s legacy alive, but, to do that, he’s had to embrace change.

“I’m always open to trying different things,” he said.

The corn fields that once provided a stable paycheck weren’t making as much of a profit, so he started a malting operation that works with Colorado breweries and distilleries. It’s called root shoot malting.

Mike Myers helps him run it.

“We wanted to focus on quality more than anything. So that also kind of is why we’ve changed some of our farming practices is to make sure that our barley is the highest quality possible,” said Myers.

The biggest change to their farming practices: becoming a carbon farming operation.

What does that mean? When plants grow, they remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it. Now, there are companies making natural compounds to help crops do that better. The goal is to slow or reverse the impacts of climate change and grow crops better and faster.

Todd is getting paid to try this carbon farming assistant on his crops.

“It’s not going to replace actually growing the crops. It’s going to be just extra money to kind of offset maybe some of the extra fertilizer costs or fuel costs that we’re seeing,” said Olander.

It’s earned him several thousand dollars, at a time when every penny counts. The company that he’s working with has paid family-owned farms across the country more than $1.5 million for carbon farming.

“That’d be my hope is that farmers are going to see the incentive to actually earn a little bit of extra money and they’re going to take some of these steps towards regenerative farming,” he said.

And Todd is taking his carbon farming one step further — he’s growing radishes as ground cover to keep the soil cool, moist and full of nutrients.

TODD OLANDER: Once you get the cycle working together, you should be able to eliminate fertilizer.

SCRIPPS’ ALEXA LIACKO: And that’s better for the planet, too.

OLANDER: It is. Exactly.

These two know, every farmer that takes on these changes can help better feed our nation and better protect our environment.

“I think we can reverse global warming. I mean, that’s that’s my hope,” said Olander.

: newsy.com

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California Heat Threatens Agriculture With Eighth Day Of Triple Digits

California’s continued triple-digit temperatures are causing farmers to struggle to stay afloat, as others deal with a strained power grid.

The West’s extreme heat, now stretching into a second week, is straining American agriculture. It’s now threatening supplies of crops and livestock.

As triple-digit temperatures sear the southwestern desert, locals are trying to stay comfortable — but farmers are trying to stay afloat.

Colorado farmer Sasha Smith was already feeling the pressure before the most recent heatwave.

“When you’re reliant on the weather, you don’t have a choice,” Smith said. “You have to adapt. You have to change to be successful and to be able to get things out and ready to sell.”

Danny Munch is an economist with the American Farm Bureau.

“On top of all the other inflationary pressures, operating expenses, high fertilizer prices, high fuel prices — this is just another thing on the docket that our farmers and ranchers are facing,” Munch said. “Forage quality going down means that the market weight of their animals is lower, so they’re making less money off the animals that they are selling.”

He says this heatwave will have a lasting impact down the road.

“A lot of our berries come from California, so drought, removal of those orchards or just continued heat pressures is gonna reduce the supply we have here and increase those localized prices for consumers,” Munch said.

Now it’s an immediate threat to people. A hiker, Dr. Evan Dishion, died Monday after hiking with friends and getting lost in the heat in Arizona.

His wife spoke to Newsy’s sister station in Phoenix.

“He was really thoughtful and self-reflective and intelligent, and he just wanted to help people,” Amy Dishion said. “It’s not worth it. He didn’t want to leave me and Chloe, and I don’t want other people to leave behind people that they love just to go on a hike.”

Leaders and medical workers across the West are trying to save others from the same devastation, as power grids strain to keep the air conditioning running.

On the Nevada-Arizona border, hurricane-force winds brought down 100 power poles, stranding thousands without power in the sweltering heat.

“It was so vicious that we couldn’t even see our neighbor across the street,” said Stephen Durrett, who is without power. “When the electric goes, everything goes.”

It will be days more for the hundreds still in the dark.

In southern California, it’s an eighth straight day of triple digits.

Contractor Shaun Clifton and his team are trying to manage their work outdoors.

“We take a break, and at the end of the day, we make sure the cooler is full of beer,” Clifton said.

It’s a routine many will have to get used to in the West as extreme heatwaves get more common in long-term forecasts and change many everyday things, from outdoor work and play to farming.

“Taking a proactive approach for a lot of our water management organizations could buffer some of the issues we’re facing just with a mindset change,” Munch said.

: newsy.com

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Farmers Experimenting With Solar Panels To Generate More Revenue

If this sort of farming succeeds, it could help ease competition for land between renewable energy production and agriculture.

It’s apple picking season at an organic orchard in Western Germany.

The crop is red Elstar apples.

But there’s a second harvest at Christian Nachtwey’s orchard: electricity.

Many of his apple trees are growing beneath solar panels.

“The idea is simple to protect the plantation without reducing the available growing surface and in particular maintaining production. On top of that there’s the solar electricity being generated in the same area,” said Nachtwey.

Getting the right combination of sun and shade is a challenge.

So, Nachtwey is collaborating with researchers on which apple varieties can thrive under solar canopies.

“This is an experimental harvest. It’s not conclusive yet. But we’re hoping to get some insights over the years to see if it can work the way we want it to,” said Nachtwey.

One benefit Nachtwey found was hardly any of the apples underneath the solar panels were damaged by the intense sun that hit the region one day in July.

“We need at least two to three full years to record all the weather conditions that might occur and look at the yield and colour that the different varieties of tree produce,” said Nachtwey.

The hope is if this sort of farming succeeds, it could help ease competition for land between renewable energy production and agriculture.

Nachtwey says eventually he could use the energy to power his facility and machines, but for now, he plans to provide electricity to dozens of nearby homes.

: newsy.com

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Florida Democrats Choose Rep. Crist To Challenge Gov. Desantis

Rep. Charlie Crist defeated Nikki Fried, who staked out a more progressive campaign, in the Florida governor race.

U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist won the Democratic nomination for governor in Florida on Tuesday, putting him in position to challenge Gov. Ron DeSantis this fall in a campaign that the Republican incumbent is eyeing as the first step toward a potential White House run.

U.S. Rep. Val Demings seized the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican Sen. Marco Rubio this fall. Demings, a former police chief and a prodigious political fundraiser, has a chance to become Florida’s first Black female senator.

In selecting Crist in the race for governor, Florida Democrats sided with a candidate backed by many in the party’s establishment who viewed him as the safest choice, even after he lost his previous two statewide elections. The 66-year-old already served one term as a Republican governor more than a decade ago before becoming a Democrat. His moderate stances could appeal to voters in Florida’s teeming suburbs as Democrats seek to reverse a losing pattern in a state that was recently seen as a perennial political battleground.

Crist defeated Nikki Fried, the state agriculture commissioner. She staked out a more progressive campaign and was particularly vocal in defending abortion and LGBTQ rights. The 44-year-old cast herself as “something new” and hoped to become Florida’s first female governor. In a sign of the party’s meager standing in Florida, she’s currently the only Democrat holding statewide office.

But the race ultimately centered on the political future of DeSantis, who emerged from a narrow victory four years ago to become one of the most prominent figures in GOP politics. His hands-off approach to the pandemic and eagerness to lean into divides over race, gender and LGBTQ rights have resonated with many Republican voters who see DeSantis as a natural heir to former President Donald Trump.

DeSantis’ reelection effort is widely assumed to be a precursor to a presidential run in 2024, adding to a sense of urgency among Democrats to blunt his rise now.

The Florida contest concludes the busiest stretch of primaries this year, which featured contests in 18 states over just 22 days. In that span, Republicans from Arizona to Alaska have supported contenders who embraced Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen, an assertion roundly rejected by elections officials, the former president’s attorney general and judges he appointed.

And for the most part, Democrats have avoided brutal primary fights — with some exceptions. Voters in New York Tuesday night decided congressional primaries that featured two powerful Democratic committee chairs, Carolyn Maloney and Jerry Nadler, competing for the same seat and other incumbents fending off challenges from the left.

Democrats are entering the final weeks ahead of the midterms with a sense of cautious optimism, hoping the Supreme Court’s decision overturning a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion will energize the party’s base. But Democrats still face tremendous headwinds, including economic uncertainty and the historic reality that most parties lose seats in the first midterm after they’ve won the White House.

The dynamics are especially challenging for Democrats in Florida, one of the most politically divided states in the U.S. Its last three races for governor were decided by 1 percentage point or less. But the state has steadily become more favorable to Republicans in recent years.

For the first time in modern history, Florida has more registered Republicans — nearly 5.2 million — than Democrats, who have nearly 5 million registered voters. Fried serves as the only Democrat in statewide office. And Republicans have no primary competition for four of those five positions – governor, U.S. Senate, attorney general and chief financial officer — which are all held by GOP incumbents.

Democrats hope that Demings, who defeated a little-known candidate in her Senate primary Tuesday, can unseat the state’s senior U.S. senator, Republican Marco Rubio, this fall. But for now, the party’s national leadership is prioritizing competitive Senate contests in other states, including neighboring Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania.

Demings sounded an optimistic note as she reflected on her unlikely life story.

“Together, I really do believe this daughter of a maid and janitor who is not supposed to be standing here tonight — I really do believe that together we can do anything,” she said.

In Florida’s governor’s race, the Supreme Court’s abortion decision animated the final weeks of the Democratic primary.

Fried promoted herself as the only true abortion-rights supporter in the race, seizing on Crist’s appointment of two conservative Supreme Court justices while he was governor.

The conservative-leaning court will soon decide whether the Republican-backed state legislature’s law to ban abortions after 15 weeks is constitutional. Florida’s new abortion law is in effect, with exceptions if the procedure is necessary to save the pregnant woman’s life, to prevent serious injury or if the fetus has a fatal abnormality. It does not allow exemptions in cases of rape, incest or human trafficking.

Crist insisted he is “pro-choice” and highlighted a bill he vetoed as governor in 2010 that would have required women seeking a first-trimester abortion to get and pay for an ultrasound exam.

“It is a woman’s right to choose,” Crist said. “My record is crystal clear, and for my opponent to try to muddy that up is unconscionable, unfair and unwise.”

DeSantis and Fried spent several hours together Tuesday morning during a Cabinet meeting at the Tallahassee statehouse. They kept things cordial during the hourslong event, which placed Fried seats away from the governor as they heard reports from agency heads on state finances, contracting and other matters.

DeSantis shook Fried’s hand as the meeting concluded and told her “good luck” before criticizing her campaign and predicting her loss in brief remarks to reporters.

“I think that you know she had an opportunity as being the only Democrat elected statewide to exercise some leadership and maybe get some things done and instead she’s used her time to try and smear me on a daily basis, that’s all she does,” DeSantis said of Fried.

After the meeting, Fried told reporters she thought the governor had scheduled the meeting as a way to sideline her during her final day of campaigning.

“Of course it’s not a coincidence,” she said of the meeting’s timing. “I think that he is scared of me winning tonight so he’s doing everything in his power to keep me off the campaign trail today.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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Its Largest Lake Is So Dry, China Digs Deep To Water Crops

By Associated Press
August 23, 2022

High temperatures have sparked wildfires in southwest China, and factories have cut production as hydroelectric plants reduce their output.

With China’s biggest freshwater lake reduced to just 25% of its usual size by a severe drought, work crews are digging trenches to keep water flowing to one of the country’s key rice-growing regions.

The dramatic decline of Poyang Lake in the landlocked southeastern province of Jiangxi had otherwise cut off irrigation channels to nearby farmlands. The crews, using excavators to dig trenches, only work after dark because of the extreme daytime heat, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

A severe heat wave is wreaking havoc across much of southern China. High temperatures have sparked mountain fires that have forced the evacuation of 1,500 people in the southwest, and factories have been ordered to cut production as hydroelectric plants reduce their output amid drought conditions. The extreme heat and drought have wilted crops and shrunk rivers including the giant Yangtze, disrupting cargo traffic.

Fed by China’s major rivers, Poyang Lake averages about 1,400 square miles in high season, but has contracted to just 285 square miles in the recent drought.

As determined by water level, the lake officially entered this year’s dry season Aug. 6, earlier than at any time since records began being taken in 1951. Hydrological surveys before then are incomplete, although it appears the lake may be at or around its lowest level in recent history.

Along with providing water for agriculture and other uses, the lake is a major stopover for migrating birds heading south for the winter.

China is more accustomed to dealing with the opposite problem: seasonal rains that trigger landslides and flooding every summer. Two years ago, villages and fields of rice, cotton, corn and beans around Poyang Lake were inundated after torrential rains.

This year, a wide swath of western and central China has seen days of temperatures exceeding 104 Fahrenheit in heat waves that have started earlier and lasted longer than usual.

The heat is likely connected to human-caused climate change, though scientists have yet to do to the complex calculations and computer simulations to say that for certain.

“The heat is certainly record-breaking, and certainly aggravated by human-caused climate change,” said Maarten van Aalst, director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre in the Netherlands. “Drought is always a bit more complex.”

The “truly mind-boggling temperatures roasting China” are connected to a stuck jet stream — the river of air that moves weather systems around the world — said Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts.

She said an elongated area of relatively high atmospheric pressure parked over western Russia is responsible for both China’s and Europe’s heat waves this year. In China’s case, the high pressure is preventing cool air masses and precipitation from entering the area.

“When hot, dry conditions get stuck, the soil dries out and heats more readily, reinforcing the heat dome overhead even further,” Francis said.

In the hard-hit city of Chongqing, some shopping malls have been told to open only from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. to conserve energy. Residents have been seeking respite in the cool of air raid shelters dating from World War II.

That reflects the situation in Europe and elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere, with high temperatures taking a toll on public health, food production and the environment.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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DeSantis Rival To Emerge From High-Stakes Florida Governor Primary

By Associated Press

and Forrest Saunders
August 23, 2022

Voters will choose Tuesday between U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist and Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried for the Democratic gubernatorial nominee.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is poised to learn the identity of his general election opponent on Tuesday as Democrats choose between a man who spent a lifetime in politics — much of it as a Republican — and a woman casting herself as “something new” as she seeks the energy of her party’s resurgent base.

The Democratic establishment has largely lined up behind Charlie Crist, a 66-year-old Democratic congressman who served as the state’s Republican governor more than a decade ago. Running now as a moderate Democrat, Crist is facing 44-year-old Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, who hopes to become the state’s first female governor while leaning into the fight for abortion rights.

The race is ultimately a debate over who is best-positioned to defeat DeSantis, who emerged from a narrow victory four years ago to become one of the most prominent Republicans in politics. His relatively light touch handling the pandemic and his eagerness to lean into divides over race, gender and LGBTQ rights have resonated with many Republican voters who see DeSantis as a natural heir to former President Donald Trump.

His reelection effort is widely assumed to be a precursor to a presidential run in 2024, adding to a sense of urgency among Democrats to blunt his rise now.

The Florida contest wraps up the busiest stretch of primaries this year. Republicans from Pennsylvania to Arizona have supported contenders who have embraced Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen, an assertion roundly rejected by elections officials, the former president’s attorney general and judges he appointed.

And for the most part, Democrats have avoided brutal primary fights. That could be tested Tuesday, however, as voters in New York participate in congressional primaries that feature two powerful Democratic committee chairs, Carolyn Maloney and Jerry Nadler, competing for the same seat and other incumbents fending off challenges from the left.

For the first time in modern history, Florida has more registered Republicans — nearly 5.2 million — than Democrats, who have nearly 5 million registered voters. Fried serves as the only Democrat in statewide office. And Republicans have no primary competition for four of those five positions — governor, U.S. Senate, attorney general and chief financial officer — which are all held by GOP incumbents.

Democrats hope that U.S. Rep. Val Demings, who faces a little-known candidate in her Senate primary Tuesday, can unseat the state’s senior U.S. senator, Republican Marco Rubio, this fall. But for now, the party’s national leadership is prioritizing competitive Senate contests in other states, including neighboring Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania.

In Florida’s governor’s race, the Supreme Court’s abortion decision has animated the final weeks of the Democratic primary.

Fried has promoted herself as the only true abortion-rights supporter in the race, seizing on Crist’s appointment of two conservative Supreme Court justices while he was governor.

Crist insisted he is “pro-choice” and highlighted a bill he vetoed as governor in 2010 that would have required women seeking a first-trimester abortion to get and pay for an ultrasound exam.

In experience and personality, voters have a clear contrast between Crist, an establishment-backed lifelong politician viewed as a relatively safe choice, and Fried, a newer face who may be in better position to catch fire with the party’s most passionate voters.

Meanwhile, Fried has gained twice as many followers on every social network and is quick to jump on online trends. She built her profile as one of DeSantis’ fiercest opponents, regularly challenging him on policy related to the COVID-19 pandemic. She also created a position within her department to ensure LGBTQ members are given opportunities as DeSantis wages what the Human Rights Campaign recently described as “an assault on transgender Floridians.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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Voters In New York And Florida To Cast Ballots In Tuesday’s Primaries

Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Malone are two influential Democrats in the House, both have been in office for about 30 years.

We are nearing the tail end of the primary season, but there are still a couple more exciting races on the calendar, including on Tuesday, when voters in New York and Florida go to the polls.

We’ll start in New York, where some high-profile Democrats are squaring off thanks to redistricting.

Topping the list of interesting races, is the primary battle between Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney. Maloney chairs the House Oversight Committee; Nadler heads the House Judiciary Committee. These are two influential Democrats in the House; both have been in office for about 30 years, but neither wanted to budge and move districts, so instead they will square off. Surj Patel is the other candidate in this race and is running as a new voice he wants to bring to Congress.

Other incumbent Democrats, like Mondaire Jones, are running in newly redrawn districts. He faces a crowded primary field that includes Daniel Goldman, an impeachment investigator during Donald Trump’s first Senate trial.

Moving down to Florida, where the closest watched race is the Democratic primary for governor. Frontrunner Charlie Crist – a former governor who now serves in the House – is taking on Nikki Freed, the state’s agriculture commissioner. The winner will take on Ron DeSantis in November.

And there won’t be much drama in the Senate primary race, where congresswoman Val Demings is expected to advance to take on Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.

Democrats have not had a lot of electoral success in statewide races in Florida recently. But Demmings – a former impeachment manger – has been raising a lot of money, and some polls show a close race.

: newsy.com

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DeSantis’ Election Police Unit Announces Voter Fraud Cases

By Associated Press

and Newsy Staff
August 19, 2022

The 20 people charged with voter fraud were among more than 11 million Florida voters who cast ballots in the 2020 election.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday announced criminal charges against 20 people for illegally voting in 2020, the first major public move from the Republican’s controversial new election police unit.

The charges mark the opening salvo from the Office of Election Crimes and Security, which from its conception drew widespread criticism from Democrats and voting rights groups who feared the unit would serve as a political tool for the governor.

DeSantis said the people charged were convicted of murder or a felony sexual offense and therefore exempt from a constitutional amendment that restores voting rights to some felons. He said most of those charged were from Broward, Miami-Dade or Palm Beach counties, all Democratic strongholds. He released few details.

The 20 people were among more than 11 million Florida voters who cast ballots in the 2020 election.

“They did not go through any process, they did not get their rights restored, and yet they went ahead and voted anyways,” DeSantis said at a campaign-style event in Fort Lauderdale before cheering supporters. “That is against the law and now they’re gonna pay the price for it.”

DeSantis, an ascendant Republican and potential 2024 presidential candidate, pushed the state legislature to create the election police unit to address voter fraud concerns that have proliferated in the GOP following former President Donald Trump’s false claims that his reelection was stolen.

Voter fraud is rare, typically occurs in isolated instances and is generally detected. An Associated Press investigation of the 2020 presidential election found fewer than 475 potential cases of voter fraud out of 25.5 million ballots cast in the six states where Trump and his allies disputed his loss to Democratic President Joe Biden. DeSantis has previously praised Florida for carrying out a smooth election in 2020.

The Office of Election Crimes and Security was created as part of a voting law package approved by the GOP-controlled Legislature earlier this year. The unit reviews fraud allegations and conducts preliminary investigations, with the law requiring the governor to appoint a group of special officers from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to pursue alleged violations.

Preexisting state law had allowed the governor to appoint officers to investigate violations of election law but did not require him to do so.

Peter Antonacci, a former Broward County Supervisor of Elections tapped by DeSantis to lead the election police unit, said more voter fraud charges were coming. Antonacci said he is “certain” there were illegal votes cast in a recent Broward County congressional election decided by five votes. He provided no additional details.

“You’ll see more of these actions, and you’ll see more of these actions until the people who are behind it quit promoting it and the people that want to take risks know that there is a downside risk to voting when you’re not eligible to vote,” he said.

Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, a Democrat running for governor, said DeSantis’ announcement was meant “to intimidate voters and suppress turnout in the most Democratic counties in Florida.”

“Everybody wants elections to be secure, but Ron DeSantis — who has never refuted Donald Trump’s Big Lie— is the last person we can trust with ‘election police,'” she said.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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