Democrat Found Guilty Of Vote Fraud Barbara Landers Faces Sentencing On 30 Counts. It Was The 2d Conviction Of A Second District Aide.

Barbara Landers, a Democratic committeewoman and aide to a state representative, was found guilty yesterday of misleading voters to get them to cast illegal absentee ballots in last fall's controversial election in Philadelphia's Second Senate District.

Landers, 53, an aide to State Rep. William Rieger (D., Phila.), was also convicted of unlawful assistance in voting, stemming from repeated instances in which she marked voters' absentee ballots, in some cases without their consent or knowledge.

"These voters were the dupes of this defendant, and she treated them as such," Deputy Attorney General Robert Campolongo told Senior Common Pleas Court Judge Warren G. Morgan 3d. "Just tell the world she committed a fraud, tell the world she lied, and for God's sake tell the world that she interfered with the elective franchise."

Morgan, a Dauphin County judge assigned to hear the case in Philadelphia Municipal Court, found Landers guilty of a total of 30 misdemeanor counts, each punishable by up to a year in prison and a $5,000 fine. He dismissed 17 counts that had charged Landers with soliciting voters to file false absentee ballots and applications.

Landers declined to comment after the verdict. Her attorney, Benjamin Lerner, said his client would decide whether to exercise her right to a new trial in Common Pleas Court after her sentencing, scheduled for July 27.

"If you take your chances on a new trial, you take your chances on a new sentence," he said.

Lerner said he might appeal an earlier ruling by the judge, which permitted use of Landers' grand jury testimony. Lerner had argued that Landers had been protected by a state constitutional provision, which he said compelled her to testify about the disputed election under an automatic grant of immunity.

The grand jury testimony had been used as part of a four-hour stipulated trial, in which no witnesses were called to testify. Instead, Campolongo and Lerner read into the trial record agreed-upon excerpts and summaries of witnesses' statements that had been given to investigators and to a state grand jury.

Lerner argued the prosecution had not proven that a crime had been committed. Landers, he said, "may have participated in an ill-advised and in some ways improper political campaign. But the evidence does not show she has violated any criminal statutes."