Thursday, March 23, 2023

3rd staffer for ex-congressman’s 2018 campaign is charged

Authorities in Virginia have filed election fraud charges against a third former campaign staffer for ex-Republican Congressman Scott Taylor.

Heather Guillot was indicted Tuesday by a Virginia Beach grand jury.

Guillot’s attorney, Richard Doummar, declined to comment on the indictment.

Guillot had served as a consultant for Taylor’s 2018 reelection bid. Guillot is accused of submitting forged signatures of voters in order to get a third-party spoiler candidate on the 2018 ballot.

The effort was widely seen as a strategy to siphon votes away from Taylor’s Democratic opponent, Elaine Luria, who ultimately won the race.

Special prosecutor John Beamer said the ballot fraud investigation isn’t over. He said he expects to seek at least one more indictment.

Beamer added that no one has been cleared, including Taylor. The former congressman is challenging Luria again this year in an effort to get his seat back.

“He’s part of the campaign and the whole campaign is under investigation,” Beamer said.

Taylor’s campaign manager, Regan Roberts, said in a statement that Taylor had “no knowledge of any wrongdoing” and that he would never condone the “unethical decisions” of his former campaign staffers.

Roberts said Taylor was told by state police that he was not under investigation and only was wanted as a witness. She also said that prosecutors were “more preoccupied with political justice … than actual justice.”

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John Mangalonzo
John Mangalonzohttp://wydaily.com
John Mangalonzo (john@localdailymedia.com) is the managing editor of Local Voice Media’s Virginia papers – WYDaily (Williamsburg), Southside Daily (Virginia Beach) and HNNDaily (Hampton-Newport News). Before coming to Local Voice, John was the senior content editor of The Bellingham Herald, a McClatchy newspaper in Washington state. Previously, he served as city editor/content strategist for USA Today Network newsrooms in St. George and Cedar City, Utah. John started his professional journalism career shortly after graduating from Lyceum of The Philippines University in 1990. As a rookie reporter for a national newspaper in Manila that year, John was assigned to cover four of the most dangerous cities in Metro Manila. Later that year, John was transferred to cover the Philippine National Police and Armed Forces of the Philippines. He spent the latter part of 1990 to early 1992 embedded with troopers in the southern Philippines as they fought with communist rebels and Muslim extremists. His U.S. journalism career includes reporting and editing stints for newspapers and other media outlets in New York City, California, Texas, Iowa, Utah, Colorado and Washington state.

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