Vote Fraud

Leland M. Beloff's coming federal trial on vote-fraud charges should be postponed or moved to another city because of the "unbelievable amount of prejudicial publicity" caused by his recent trial, conviction and sentencing for extortion, his attorney argued in a motion filed yesterday. Beloff, 45, who resigned his City Council seat Tuesday, was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison for using his office to demand payoffs from three developers, including a plot with reputed organized-crime boss Nicodemo Scarfo to extort $1 million from Willard G. Rouse 3d. Scarfo, 58, was sentenced to 14 years and Beloff's aide, Robert Rego, 43, was sentenced to eight years for their participation in the conspiracy.

AS I LISTENED to Democrat after Democrat cry about fraud in the Ohio election, I was reminded of "being careful what you ask for - you just might get it. " It amazes me to listen to the whining and complaining about an election in a state that John Kerry lost by well over 100,000 votes. There is no solid evidence of any real irregularities, yet we hear from Sheila Jackson-Lee and Maxine Waters about "disenfranchisement. " Well Ms. Lee and Ms. Waters, I voted legally in Philadelphia on Election Day. Was it fair that my vote was disenfranchised by the crack addict the Dems paid to vote?

City Councilman Leland M. Beloff today was accused of attempted extortion, vote fraud and obtaining a luxury Olde City apartment for a female friend in return for sponsoring special legislation. In one of two indictments returned yesterday by a federal grand jury and made public today, Beloff, his top aide, Robert Rego, and reputed Mafia soldier Nicholas "Nicky Crow" Caramandi again were charged in connection with a $1 million extortion attempt on the developer of a multimillion-dollar project at Penn's Landing.

A new nationwide analysis of more than 2,000 cases of alleged election fraud over the last dozen years shows that in-person voter impersonation on Election Day was virtually nonexistent. The analysis of 2,068 reported fraud cases by News21, a Carnegie-Knight investigative-reporting project, found 10 cases of alleged in-person voter impersonation since 2000. With 146 million registered voters in the United States, those represent about one for every 15 million prospective voters.

Charles Pollan, onetime aide to former City Councilman Leland Beloff, was sentenced to three years in federal prison today on vote fraud charges growing out of the 1984 and 1985 general elections. U.S. District Judge Thomas N. O'Neill Jr. also ordered Pollan to serve a five-year probation term following his imprisonment and prohibited him from participating in any political activities during that time. Under the sentence, Pollan, who was a Democratic committeeman in South Philadelphia's Ward 39B, will be required to work 200 hours on community projects during his first two years on probation.

The indictment charging City Councilman Leland M. Beloff, his wife and two Democratic committeepeople with vote fraud is the fourth time in 22 years that sprawling Ward 39B in South Philadelphia has been the subject of a ballot irregularity investigation. The 63-count indictment made public yesterday marks the second time that Beloff has been charged with vote fraud. The latest indictment focuses on the alleged fraudulent obtaining and casting of absentee ballots in the names of residents of the Walt Whitman Convalescent Center, a nursing home at 4th and Porter streets, during the 1984 presidential election.

A 63-count federal grand jury indictment charging City Councilman Leland M. Beloff, his wife and two Democratic committeepeople with vote fraud marks the third time in 22 years that South Philadelphia's Ward 39B has been the subject of ballot irregularity investigations. It also marks the second time Bel off - Democratic leader of Ward 39B - has been charged with vote fraud. The indictment, released today, includes charges of criminal conspiracy, giving false information on voter registration and balloting materials and voting more than once.

Nicholas Marrandino, the federal government's star witness in the vote fraud case against ex-City Councilman Leland M. Beloff, which is scheduled to start Monday, claims he heard the "proverbial South Philadelphia warning shot" Wednesday night. But he waited until yesterday morning to tell the FBI there were four bullet holes in his car. And he didn't even bother to tell the Philadelphia police. Marrandino, a convicted thief who secretly recorded numerous conversations in Beloff's South Philadelphia office for the FBI, said he and a friend, Mark Colangelo, were getting out of Marrandino's car around midnight on S. 7th Street - he wouldn't say where - when what sounded like shots rang out. "We're just thankful that we were not hit, and we could've been," Marrandino told the Daily News.

Investigators from Attorney General Ernie Preate's office spent a second day yesterday inventorying and carting away every piece of paper associated with the scandal-ridden election in state senatorial District 2. They hope to finish today so they can get down to the real business of determining whether anyone broke the law in the Nov. 2 election. Democrat Bill Stinson has been seated in the state Senate. His Republican opponent, Bruce Marks, has claimed massive voter fraud put Stinson there.