Appeals court upholds conviction against illegal voter
(Published Friday, June 15, 2007 10:19:54 AM CST)
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
By Carrie Antlfinger Associated Press
MILWAUKEE - A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that a voter-fraud conviction should stand against a Milwaukee woman who voted even though she was still a felon under state supervision.
Kimberly Prude, 43, was convicted in September 2005 after a three-day trial and sentenced to two years in prison. She is due to be released in the fall.
The court's 3-0 decision supports federal prosecutors who brought election fraud cases in the hard-fought 2004 campaign between Sen. John Kerry and President Bush. Kerry won Wisconsin by about 11,000 votes.
Prude and nine other felons were later charged with illegal voting. Four other people were accused of voting twice as the Bush administration pressured federal prosecutors to be aggressive in pursuing voter fraud cases. Of the 14 cases - six were dismissed, one had a hung jury, two were acquitted and five were convicted.
U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic has repeatedly denied that pressure caused his office to prosecute voter fraud cases. He also has said he deliberately investigated voter fraud in 2005, so as not to influence the 2004 or 2006 elections.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Giampietro, who handled the appeal, said the office was gratified.
"There was never an argument on appeal that there was insufficient evidence so we were always confident in the outcome of the appeal," he said.
Prude, on probation for a Waukesha County forgery conviction, voted in October 2004 along with others during a rally featuring the Rev. Al Sharpton. She followed the crowd to City Hall in Milwaukee, registered to vote and submitted an absentee ballot.
Prude has said she learned she could not vote only after casting her ballot, contacted the election commission to withdraw her ballot and was told not to worry about the vote.
Her parole officer testified at her trial that he told her nearly a month before the rally that she could not vote.
Prude, a grandmother of three, said the 2004 vote was her first.
"At this point, I'm not interested in voting," Prude told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last month at the Robert E. Ellsworth Correctional Center in Racine County.
In her appeal, she argued the court erred in not allowing the director of the Milwaukee Election Commission to testify toward her theory of defense. Sue Edman would have testified there was no policy in place to withdraw a ballot, which Prude argues would have supported her contention that she attempted to withdraw it.
Prude also said the court erred in refusing to give the jury her instruction on the theory of defense.
The 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago disagreed, saying it didn't think Edman's testimony would have changed anything, Prude didn't demonstrate that the jury was not instructed adequately and she was not deprived of a fair trial.
A message left by The Associated Press for her attorney Joshua Buchman was not immediately returned Thursday.
