Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Republicans Going to Jail

Now if only they actually got the folks who requested this dandy service. Surely it is not too much to conclude that the Republican Party knew this illegal activity was going on.

The former head of a Republican consulting group was sentenced Tuesday to five months in jail for jamming Democratic telephone lines in several New Hampshire cities during the 2002 election.

Allen Raymond, 37, who was president of the Alexandria, Va.-based GOP Marketplace LLC at the time, did not comment as he left the U.S. District Court sentencing. He also was fined $15,600.

He had pleaded guilty in June.

Court papers say Raymond and co-conspirators plotted to jam Democratic lines that voters could call for rides to the polls in Manchester, Nashua, Rochester and Claremont. A line run by the nonpartisan Manchester firefighters' union also was jammed.

The blizzard of more than 800 computer-generated calls lasted about 90 minutes on Nov. 5, 2002, as voters decided races for governor, U.S. senator and hundreds of other offices.

Here's the link. And that's all for now -- just a quick hit.