Kerry Workers' Tire-Slashing Trial Begins [Son of WI Dem... “Supreme Solar Allah”]

Fourteen months after John Kerry narrowly carried Wisconsin in the 2004 presidential election amidst allegations of voter fraud, five campaign workers for the Kerry-Edwards campaign team are set for trial Tuesday in Milwaukee on felony charges of damage to property.

The "Milwaukee Five” is charged with slashing 40 tires on 25 separate Republican vehicles on the morning of the 2004 presidential election. The vehicles were rented by the Wisconsin Republican Party to transport less-mobile voters to the polls on Election Day. In total, the vandals disabled 25 percent of the Republican Party’s "Get Out the Vote” fleet. The defendants include Sowande Ajumoke Omokunde, the son of Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wisc.) who also goes by the name Supreme Solar Allah; Michael Pratt, the son of former Milwaukee Mayor Marvin Pratt and leader of Kerry’s campaign team in Milwaukee; Lewis Caldwell; Lavelle Mohammed, and Justin Howell.

According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, four of the defendants were paid operatives of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, including Omokunde and Pratt. Court TV will cover the trial, which is expected to last two weeks. Potential witnesses include Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), national AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, and 77 others – including FBI agents, Milwaukee police officers, and party activists from both parties. The five defendants, who will be tried together, are charged with criminal damage to property, a felony with maximum sentences of 3 1/2 years in prison or $10,000 in fines.

The criminal complaint states that Opel Simmons, a Democratic campaign worker from Virginia, identified the defendants as the perpetrators, and told police they had named their plan "Operation Elephant Takeover.” Simmons told Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney David Feiss that he saw the defendants dressed in "Mission Impossible type gear” at Democratic Party headquarters sometime around 3 a.m. on the morning of the election. When Simmons asked the five what they were planning, defendant Lavelle Mohammed allegedly responded, "You don’t want to know, don’t ask.” The defendants returned to Democratic headquarters approximately 20 minutes later. Simmons told investigators they were jubilant and shared details of their vandalism spree with him. "We got ‘em,” said Pratt. "We hit the tires.”

The tire-slashing incident is just one of a number of election-day irregularities in Wisconsin, a state where Kerry only prevailed by 11,384 votes. Questions have been raised about the inordinately large volume of Election Day registrations in Milwaukee, where 84,000 people in a city of 600,000 registered at the polls on the day of the election. The total represented 30 percent of all voters in the city. Milwaukee city officials admitted in January 2005 that around 10,000 same-day registrations could not be verified, leaving open the possibility of fraud.

An investigation by the Milwaukee-Journal Sentinel reported another 1,200 Milwaukeeans voted using invalid addresses. Another article revealed in late January 2005 that there were 7,000 more votes than voters in Milwaukee, suggesting ballot-stuffing in the Democrat-controlled city.

"Chances of this being covered by MSM: 0.0% "

Take heart. It's being covered locally...the evening on-line postings just aren't out yet for the local papers. You're probably right that this won't be on the alphabet channels tonight, but I'm certain one of our local channels will cover it. (Channel 3, WISC TV)

Vicki McKenna covered it in depth on her show today. She had the key witness for the Prosecution on today. You can listen here if you want:

http://www.wiba.com ('Up Front' is her show.)

Besides...what would Thunder90 & I (and others) have to do if the MSM did their job? LOL!

The AP is running it, but OMG! Gwen Moore is claiming her son's being FRAMED for Bush's loss in our state! UN-FRICKEN-BELIEVEABLE!

Five Democratic campaign workers on trial in criminal damage case

By GRETCHEN EHLKE
Associated Press Writer

MILWAUKEE (AP) -- Five Democratic presidential campaign workers, including the sons of a congresswoman and a former mayor, were wrongly implicated in Election Day vandalism by national political operatives, defense attorneys argued at their trial Tuesday.

Prosecutors accused the five of slashing 40 tires on get-out-the-vote vans at a Republican campaign office in the early hours before the Nov. 2, 2004, election, causing more than $5,000 in damage.

Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney David Feiss argued that although there were no eyewitnesses, fingerprints or DNA, testimony from the national campaign workers will show the five bragged about the vandalism when they returned to the Democratic campaign office early on Election Day.

"What you will find is that the five gentlemen acted together. ... It was done pursuant to a single plan," Feiss said.

But Robin Shellow, the attorney for Sowande A. Omokunde, the son of Democratic U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, said campaign violence had occurred in an "orchestrated way" across the country in the weeks leading up to the presidential election.

Shellow said a group of "national professional operatives" sent to the battleground state of Wisconsin wrongly accused Omokunde and the four others in the tire slashings.

"The violence that they're trying to put on these kids from Wisconsin had been happening in an organized way across the country," Shellow told jurors.

The five face up to 3 1/2 years in prison and a $10,000 fine if convicted of criminal damage to property.

Rodney Cubbie, the attorney for Michael Pratt, son of former Acting Milwaukee Mayor Marvin Pratt, said the national John Kerry workers, including campaign supervisor Opel Simmons, were the ones who came up with a plan, called Operation Elephant Takeover, to harass Republicans by plastering the GOP office and property with Kerry-Edwards signs and bumper stickers.

Cubbie told jurors the stories from the out-of-state campaign staffers, who he said "have their own motive to lie," have changed during the course of interviews by local and federal investigators.

Also charged were Lewis Caldwell and Lavelle Mohammad, both from Milwaukee, and Justin Howell of Racine.

The state Republican Party rented more than 100 vehicles that were parked in a lot next to the George Bush campaign office to give rides to voters and poll monitors on Election Day.

The five were charged criminally because damage exceeded the threshold of $2,500, prosecutors said.

Moore said prosecutors had turned a criminal damage case into "the crime of the century" because she won election to Congress that Nov. 2.

"It's hard to believe it's not revenge for my being elected," Moore said outside the courtroom.

Moore said after she visited the White House following her election, President Bush shook his finger in her face and blamed her for his loss in Wisconsin.

"Milwaukee city officials admitted in January 2005 that around 10,000 same-day registrations could not be verified, leaving open the possibility of fraud.

An investigation by the Milwaukee-Journal Sentinel reported another 1,200 Milwaukeeans voted using invalid addresses. Another article revealed in late January 2005 that there were 7,000 more votes than voters in Milwaukee, suggesting ballot-stuffing in the Democrat-controlled city."

Just the fact that we are reading this is an improvement.
HAVA the Help America Vote Act will slowly but certainly cut off the rat's voter fraud. You know the Louisiana and Wisconsin GOP will be watching closely. Other state organizations will as well.

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