Two days after the District Attorney’s Office dropped four
felony charges against Supervisor Jaime De La Cruz, a woman charged
with voting twice in the hotly contested District 5 supervisor’s
race pleaded not guilty to the felony charge.
Hollister – Two days after the District Attorney’s Office dropped four felony charges against Supervisor Jaime De La Cruz, a woman charged with voting twice in the hotly contested District 5 supervisor’s race pleaded not guilty to the felony charge.
Hollister resident Maria Guadalupe Araujo, who entered the plea Thursday, will be in court on March 7 for a preliminary hearing to determine if the evidence warrants the felony charge.
District Attorney John Sarsfield has said Araujo mailed in an absentee ballot and voted at a polling place on Election Day, and that supporters from the De La Cruz camp urged her to do so. Araujo has said the entire thing was an honest mistake and although she voted for De La Cruz, who beat former Supervisor Bob Cruz by 10 votes, she would never break the law to get him an extra vote. De La Cruz supporters have denied pressuring the woman to vote twice.
Araujo’s attorney, John O’Brien, said the charge is a fabrication and nothing more than a form of harassment by the district attorney’s office. He said he has requested the case be dismissed, but if not it will go to trial and he believes Araujo will be found not guilty.
“I can assure you there will be no plea bargain. I can’t understand why charges were filed in the first place – there’s no evidence to support the charges,” O’Brien said. “She did absolutely nothing other than attempt to exercise her right to vote.”
Sarsfield said he has enough evidence to support the charges, and that a sheriff’s department report says she voted twice.
“He’s (O’Brien) entitled to his opinion,” Sarsfield said, “but he’s confused, perhaps.”
O’Brien said the district attorney’s office is attempting to have an arrest warrant issued for Araujo because she hasn’t been booked, and that there’s no reason for her to be booked because she has voluntarily appeared in court twice, already.
Sarsfield said Araujo needs to be booked to prove prior offenses and for law enforcement to have accurate and up-to-date records. If the 37-year-old mother of two is convicted on the felony charge, she could face up to three years in prison. Although Sarsfield agreed to a plea bargain for De La Cruz for one misdemeanor charge of interfering with an investigator, he said that decision has no bearing on the Araujo case.
“Those cases have nothing to do with each other,” Sarsfield said.
The prosecutor has said the charge could be reduced to a misdemeanor, but whether that could happen or a plea bargain could be struck is speculative at this time, he said.
Araujo had planned to vote in the March 2, 2004 election by absentee ballot, but she didn’t think her absentee ballot had been mailed in so she voted with a provisional ballot on Election Day, she said. The elections office has said they believe she was given a normal ballot by mistake.
If someone votes with a provisional ballot the Elections Office is supposed to disqualify that ballot if their absentee ballot shows up prior to the election. The Elections Office received her ballot on Election Day, but it wasn’t counted until the day after, according to the Elections Office. When she went to the polls, there was no record that her ballot had been received, so poll workers allowed her to vote again.
If Araujo’s charge is reduced to a misdemeanor she could face up to a year in jail, but depending on the judge’s sentencing decision, she could also receive probation with no jail time. Either way, Araujo said she shouldn’t be charged for something she did unintentionally and that the entire matter has made her family members and friends afraid to vote.
Erin Musgrave covers public safety for the Free Lance. Reach her at 637-5566, ext. 336 or [email protected]
