MADISON, Wis. (AP) — State prosecutors have decided not to charge Rep. Pedro Colon with falsifying nomination signatures, closing the books on a complaint his primary opponent filed last year.
In an August memo that the state Justice Department released Wednesday, agency attorneys wrote they believe nomination papers Colon certified himself include four signatures from people who didn't sign them. But they said they probably don't have enough evidence to prove any intentional wrongdoing, noting Colon still had enough legitimate signatures to get on the ballot.
"A felony conviction leading to the vacancy of his office would seemingly be contrary to the will of the voters in that district and excessively harsh in this case," the memo said.
Colon did not immediately return a message left at his state Capitol office late Wednesday afternoon.
Prosecutors did, however, charge a woman with falsifying signatures on Colon's papers and voting under a false address. Yadira E. Colon, 42, faces two counts of election fraud and two counts of falsifying nomination signatures. She is not related to the lawmaker.
The Justice Department's moves cap an investigation into a complaint from one of Colon's 2008 primary opponents. Laura Manriquez had claimed some addresses on Colon's papers were incomplete or invalid and some signatures appeared to be in the same handwriting.
The state Government Accountability Board in July 2008 found Colon had 241 valid signatures, more than the 200 needed to get on the ballot. Manriquez asked the Milwaukee County district attorney to look into it. That office passed the matter to the state Justice Department. Colon, meanwhile, went on to defeat Manriquez in the September primary and win re-election in the November general election.
The Justice Department's memo said the investigation clearly supported allegations that papers Yadira Colon circulated contained forged signatures. According to Wednesday's criminal complaint, Yadira Colon forged 10 names, including the names of a Milwaukee family she stayed with briefly in 2007.
She also used the family's address on an absentee ballot she filed in March 2008, ahead of the state's April elections, even though she had lived in Oshkosh for months. The complaint lists her last known address as York County Prison in Pennsylvania.
The complaint did not offer any insight into her motives. She faces up to 14 years in prison and $40,000 in fines. Online court records did not list an attorney for her.
As for Colon himself, the memo said the lawmaker had certified that he circulated four nomination papers himself, although his signature looked different on two of them. Colon told investigators he did indeed circulate the papers and signed the certifications.
Investigators also found two separate incidents in which one person signed more than one name on the papers Colon certified.
In one instance, a woman signed both her name and her husband's name at a school function where Colon was speaking in June 2008. The woman said a school employee circulated the papers.
In the second instance, some days later that month, Colon approached a group of people on a porch in Milwaukee and asked them to sign his papers. A woman signed her name as well as the names of her sister, her mother and her boyfriend.
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