You know he's guilty
Quote of note:
Two other Republicans have pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy in the phone-jamming operation: Chuck McGee, former executive director of the New Hampshire Republican party; and Allen Raymond, a former colleague of Tobin's who operated GOP Marketplace, a telemarketing service in Alexandria, Va. They are scheduled to be sentenced in February and March.
Former Bush campaign official indicted for phone-jamming
By Katharine Webster, Associated Press Writer | December 14, 2004
CONCORD, N.H. --The former New England chairman of President Bush's re-election campaign pleaded innocent in federal court to charges he helped jam Democrats' get-out-the-vote phone lines on Election Day 2002.
James Tobin, 44, of Bangor, Maine, faces two criminal counts each of conspiring to make harassing telephone calls and aiding and abetting telephone harassment. The operation also involved a ride-to-the-polls phone line set up by the nonpartisan Manchester firefighters' union.
Tobin, who was northeast political director of the Republican Senatorial Committee at the time, was indicted Dec. 1 after an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. He faces up to five years in federal prison if convicted.
Tobin is free on personal recognizance and prosecutors agreed he did not pose a flight risk or a danger to the public.
But U.S. Magistrate Judge James Muirhead on Monday ordered him to surrender his passport and any weapons and said he should report to pre-trial services, just like any other criminal defendant.
Muirhead threatened to jail Tobin if he gets so much as a speeding ticket before his trial begins Feb. 1.
"He's no different than a street hooker in Manchester," Muirhead said. "If he's guilty, then I find his crime as offensive as any other crime."
Disrupting the electoral process is an "outrage against the constitution," Muirhead said.
