Posted on 12/12/2004 9:34:27 AM PST by flutters
A grand jury indicted a man who authorities said submitted phony voter-registration cards in the names of Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy and star athletes.
Chad Staton was charged with 10 counts of false registration. He was being held yesterday in the Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio pending a bond hearing and arraignment Wednesday in Defiance County Common Pleas Court.
Staton was arrested last week after being indicted by a Defiance County grand jury investigating allegations that a woman paid him with cocaine in exchange for registration efforts.
Authorities have said Staton filled out phony voter forms himself rather than getting citizens to fill out legitimate registrations. He was first arrested in October but was released without bond during the investigation.
Officers said then that they interviewed a woman who said she had paid Staton with cocaine for the registrations.
That woman, Georgianne Pitts, 41, of Toledo, was found dead in her home Monday, possibly because of a drug overdose, the Toledo police crime log indicated.
The Lucas County coroner’s office conducted an autopsy but was waiting for toxicology results before releasing the cause of death.
A message seeking comment was left yesterday for Coroner James Patrick.
The Lucas County prosecutor’s office was planning to file 10 counts of filing false registration forms against Pitts, chief investigator Frank Stiles said.
"She was the central figure in all this," Stiles said. "Everything went through her."
False registration is a felony and carries a sentence of six to 12 months in prison.
I think you've got the name wrong. I believe that it's actually the National Association of Annoying, Complaining People. :=)
Has anyone in the Cuyahoga county PD talked to that district's ACORN (Wait one, that was Georgianne Pitts!) represenative?
Or the local NAACP rep, whose cards the police found during the initial investigation in late October?
This all is happening a bit too conveniently.
Jack.
Was he dimpled or hanging when he was arrested?
Wasn't this the one related to the NAACP?
Hmmm.. Gee, I wonder if this was a Democrat or a Republican operation?
How about that Democrat in Florida who was caught driving around with a voting machine in his trunk in 2000?
I wonder if he's still alive.
We did hear about it earlier. A month or two before the election. Don't have a link handy but I saw it here and on drudge. Rush talked about it as well.
Sounds like another "Arkancide" to me.
The embedded reporter who got the TN National Guardsman to ask that question of Rumsfeld the other day, the one that the MSM has been using to pound on Rumsfeld with, was also named Pitts...but could be unrelated.
For the vote fraud registry. Who's keeping that anyway?
Additional crime in #15
If you don't see one, it's not really guessing.
You are correct that is the first I've heard of Pitts death.
Of course folks involved in scandals close to important people have a way of having accidents.
Locally in Chicago a fellow key to a particular city scandal just "fell off his horse" yer honor. And died of "various injuries including head trama" that he sustained in the fall.
*ahem*
Now I aint insuatin nothing....... But you can conclude what you will......
Verrryyy Interressting.
If Vince Foster had a gun, he'd be alive today.
That's not the fraud they were looking for.
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041208/NEWS03/412080350/-1/NEWS
WORK-FOR-COCAINE ALLEGATIONS
By VANESSA WINANS, BLADE STAFF WRITER
The Defiance man who gained national and international attention during the presidential campaign for allegedly registering voters in exchange for crack cocaine, has been indicted for false voter registration.
Ten felony counts by the Defiance County grand jury were filed against Chad Staton, 22, on Monday.
And, in a strange twist, the Toledo woman who claimed she had given him crack for the voters he registered, was found dead the same day in her home from an apparent drug overdose.
Georgianne Pitts, 41, was found dead in her home, Toledo police said yesterday. The police crime log said her death appeared to be an overdose, but the Lucas County coroner's office, which conducted an autopsy Monday, did not release the cause of death pending toxicology test results.
When officers went to her Woodland Avenue home, they found her on a couch in the living room covered by a blanket, as though she died in her sleep, police said.
Defiance County prosecutor Jeffrey Strausbaugh did not return phone calls yesterday seeking comment on the case against Mr. Staton and how the death of Pitts could affect it.
The charges against Mr. Staton were made in connection with a pre-election scandal that made national headlines and attracted interest from the international press.
Mr. Staton allegedly filled out more than 100 voter registration forms, claiming he had registered Dick Tracy and Mary Poppins, among many others in Defiance. He told police he gave the registrations to Pitts, who was working as a volunteer for the NAACP National Voter Fund.
Defiance County Sheriff David Westrick said yesterday there is a warrant for Mr. Staton's arrest, and that he remained at large.
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