East Liverpool woman pleads guilty to election fraud
LISBON
A 34-year-old East Liverpool woman, who worked for the Youngstown-based Ohio Organizing Collaborative, pleaded guilty to 14 felonies related to election fraud.
Rebecca Hammonds made the guilty plea Friday in Columbiana County Common Pleas Court to 13 counts of making a false registration and one count of election falsification. Judge C. Ashley Pike will sentence her March 6.
OCC paid Hammonds to collect voter registrations, but she was fired in October 2015 when the Columbiana County Board of Elections discovered the false records, including newly registered voters who were dead.
The OOC isn’t being investigated and cooperated with law enforcement officials in this matter.
The OOC, created in 2007, focuses on “social, racial and economic justice in Ohio,” according to its website.
The conviction came after an investigation by the Ohio Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation. The case was prosecuted by the Columbiana County Prosecutor’s Office and the AG’s Special Prosecutions Section.
Columbiana County election officials told The Vindicator in October 2015 one person, later identified as Hammonds, submitted about 30 fraudulent voter-registration applications, including five from people who had died about 10 years before as well as other forms with wrong dates of birth and addresses.
Hammonds was indicted in June 2016 on 32 counts of making a false registration and three counts of election falsification, all felonies.