7-17-2005: Gallina (Diebold) reported...

Author Message   admin Board Administrator Username: admin Post Number: 797 Registered: 12-2004 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 9 (A keeper?) Posted on Sunday, July 17, 2005 - 12:07 pm:        In May, Black Box Voting broke a story on Diebold "lobbying" payments through ACG Group. The 'G' in ACG stands for Pasquale "Pat" Gallina. Yesterday, the Columbus Dispatch broke an article exposing a $10,000 payment from Gallina to the Franklin County Republican Party, by way of the Franklin County Elections Director. According to the Dispatch, Elections Director Matthew Damschroder also reported a $50,000 payment by Gallina to Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell's political interests. The exposure of ACG Group Black Box Voting investigators Kathleen Wynne and Bev Harris uncovered the relationship of an obscure corporate entity, ACG Group LLC, after tracing payments made by Diebold Election Systems to Hispanic leader Juan Andrade, Jr. Black Box Voting obtained check stubs, accounts payable ledgers, general journal reports, and other internal financial documents from Diebold Election Systems and Diebold, Inc. Curious about the $20,000 per month going to Andrade, a seemingly unlikely associate for Diebold, in that he had been a long time Hispanic voting rights advocate, Harris and Wynne traced Andrade's corporate interests, coming up with "ACG Group LLC." Further examination of ACG Group led to Ohio, and Pat Gallina. Andrade's story begins to crumble In April, 2005, Black Box Voting conducted a videotaped interview with Andrade. Several statements made by Andrade on videotape did not check out during later investigations. Black Box Voting worked with Cook County and DuPage County election integrity advocates to gather documentation disproving Andrade's statements. - Andrade implied that he did not get involved with ACG Group until December 2003. - Andrade also said that the 'A' in ACG Group stands for Andrade. - ACG Group was incorporated in Ohio in June 2003, and in Illinois in December 2003. The Ohio entity shows no name change. Therefore, Andrade -- who lives in Griffith, Indiana -- clearly had some association with the Ohio group as early as June 2003. - Andrade said that he disclosed to his group, the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute ("USHLI"), that he was involved with Diebold at its annual meeting in December 2003. Andrade told Black Box Voting, after disclosing his association with Diebold to the USHLI, in order to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest, he announced at the annual meeting that he was stepping down as Executive Director of USHLI, but would remain as its President. He indicated that his duties as President were largely fundraising for USHLI. However, he was still listed on its Web site as recently as May 2005, as both the Executive Director and President. The annual meeting was held in September, not December. - Andrade claims that he registered in Cook County as a lobbyist. - However, he was not registered until March 2005, AFTER receiving calls from Kathleen Wynne of Black Box Voting. - Andrade stated on videotape that he does not have to tell us how much money Diebold paid him. - Not true. Illinois law, and Cook County regulations, require him to submit reports of all monies received and all payments made in connection with lobbying. The penalty for failure to file is $100 per day. - Andrade did not file financial reports as required. How much money was going through ACG Group? Andrade stated that Diebold was paying monies to him and through ACG Group. Diebold check stubs and other financial documents show that Andrade was receiving a check on the 15th of every month from Diebold Election Systems for $20,000. For the time period of June 2003 through April 2005 (22 months), at $20,000 per month, this would amount to $440,000. Even if Andrade only received payments from his admitted start date, December 2003, this would amount to $320,000. We consulted with Jim March, who is on the Black Box Voting board of directors, who also just happens to be a professional lobbyist for a non-profit group that is unrelated to voting issues. These amounts, say March, for a single individual registered in a single county are outlandish, and would tend to be a red flag for authorities. "That amount of money for one person in one county is more consistent with something used as a conduit, rather than for traditional lobbying," he says. Here is what the Columbus Dispatch has to say about funds paid out by Gallina: Vendor's donation questioned Diebold rep gave $10,000 to county GOP Saturday, July 16, 2005 ...A contractor who represents Diebold Election Systems arrived at the office of Franklin County Board of Elections Director Matthew Damschroder with an open checkbook on the same day the county was opening bids for voter-registration software. Pasquale "Pat" Gallina arrived unannounced, Damschroder said. "I'm here to give you $10,000," the elections director recalls Gallina saying. "Who do I make it payable to?" "Well, you're certainly not going to make it out to me," Damschroder says he told Gallina. "But I'm sure the Franklin County Republican Party would appreciate a donation." Gallina wrote the check, and Damschroder says he took it on Jan. 9, 2004. That weekend, Damschroder said, he mailed the check to the county party. Damschroder had been executive director of the party until June 2003, when he was appointed director of the elections board. Diebold, the highest of four bidders, didn't get the software contract, and Damschroder says he never recommended the company. Note that Cook County also did not award the contract to Diebold. According to Andrade, the money going to him and ACG Group was doled out to many people, for reasons that are largely "persuasive." These payments should provoke questions asking exactly what was Diebold paying for. Nonetheless, what is clear is that Diebold did not properly disclose payments it made to "lobbyists," nor did the "lobbyists" themselves. We could not find Gallina on the list of Ohio registered lobbyists for Diebold, nor could we find Gallina or ACG Group on lists of Diebold Ohio lobbying expenditures. According to the Dispatch: Gallina said yesterday that the $10,000 was his money and had nothing to do with Diebold. He said he's always supported county Republican parties in areas where he lives. "I donate to Licking and to Franklin," he said. A perusal of records at opensecrets.org reveals that both Gallina and Andrade were contributing heavily to John Kerry. From the Dispatch: The check incident remained between Gallina and Damschroder until late last month when an assistant county prosecutor called Damschroder. Election Systems & Software, a company that is suing Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell over the state's policies for buying electronic voting machines, wanted to talk with Damschroder about allegations that Diebold was paying to play, the prosecutor told him. Damschroder told him about the $10,000 check and had another story to tell. In May, he said, Gallina called him and bragged about a $50,000 check he had written to Blackwell's "political interests." "Isn't it great that Diebold and the county are going to do business?" he says Gallina asked him. Damschroder said Gallina went on to tell him that he had met with Norm Cummings, a Blackwell campaign consultant, in Washington, D.C., to work out a deal: Diebold would cut the price of its electronic voting machines to $2,700 each if the company had a guarantee that it would receive all of the state's business. "Then Gallina tells me that he then wrote a check for $50,000 to Blackwell's political interests." Carlo LoParo, Blackwell's spokesman, called Damschroder's assertions "wild accusations" and said, "You can't point me to anything that substantiates what he says." (Perhaps we can help. We'd like to point you to the bank account for ACG Group, LLC. Check that and get back to us about "substantiation.") Below is a recap and update of the second story about ACG Group published by Black Box Voting. Note that we have removed, for now, information about Joseph E. LoConti. He was a former business partner of Andrew Shission and Pat Gallina. However, after many correspondences between Black Box Voting and LoConti, we have pulled information about him until we can review additional source documents. According to Mr. LoConti, the Cleveland Plain Dealer juxtaposed information about he and his father, Joseph A. LoConti, and other alleged inaccuracies by the Plain Dealer need to be checked out. Since he is peripheral to the story, we have corrected it to delete references to him. The Ohio Players By Bev Harris and Kathleen Wynne For a glimpse into local mechanics for money laundering and bribes, a good place to start is Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Diebold lobbyist Pat Gallina's Republican Party friend, Robert E. Hughes was written up in the New York Times back in 1978, alleging a clumsy version of the cash transfers that have since evolved into an art form. Who is Diebold's Ohio lobbyist, Pasquale A. Gallina? (a.k.a. Patrick A. Gallina, Pat Gallina) (Recap from Part I) ACG Group LLC was formed by Democrat Juan Andrade Jr., Democrat Anthony Celebrezze, and Republican Pat Gallina for the purpose of selling Diebold voting systems in Ohio and Illinois. (1) Gallina and Celebrezze were involved in the Ohio side of procurement, but Celebrezze died shortly after forming the company, leaving Gallina to handle Ohio. (2) Pat Gallina has been operating behind the scenes in Ohio to promote the leading voting system vendor. Gallina was the personnel director for the Ohio Lottery Commission during 1977 and 1978, when he resigned after being named in a lawsuit that prompted federal, state and local officials to investigate alleged contract kickback schemes at the commission. Gallina was granted immunity from prosecution in return for his testimony before a Cuyahoga County grand jury investigating Republican Chairman Robert E. Hughes over a lottery procurement issue. (3) ----------------------- Gallina and Juan Andrade: While Gallina was at the Ohio Lottery, Juan Andrade Jr. was also in Columbus, running the Ohio League of Hispanic Affairs. (4) Andrade is Gallina's current partner in ACG Group. As you will see, Gallina seems to be a curious choice in business partners for someone of Andrade's impeccable reputation. ------------------------------- Gallina and Mark Michalko, CEO of Los Angeles voting system parent company: In 1977 and 1978, Gallina met another player, Mark Michalko, who now heads the parent company for InkaVote, the voting system used in Los Angeles. (5 ) Gallina hired Michalko as legal counsel for the Ohio Lottery in 1977. (6) Michalko became the first California Lottery Director at the age of 30, but stepped down suddenly two years later after investigators began digging into his vague contracts and sloppy accounting (yes, and that little matter of what happened to the millions from unclaimed tickets...). California Lottery Director Michalko was chided by the Little Hoover Commission for his inadequate contract management. (7) But GTECH lobbyist Clayton R. Jackson, who was indicted on 10 counts of racketeering, conspiracy and money laundering, seemed to feel that Michalko was someone GTECH could count on. Jackson was secretly tape-recorded wistfully discussing Michalko: "He was our guy," said Jackson "We had the first guy." (8) -------------------------------- Gallina's Ohio connections: For an excellent tutorial on the unsavory process of procuring systems in response to orchestrated legislation, you can't do better than lottery systems. Take a close look at how they were legislated into being, state by state. It was a business plan. (9) Then look at how people like the Ohio Lottery Players cozied up to bribe-o-matic GTECH, through wheel-greaser Battelle, which anointed GTECH over and over (state lottery directors then explained to regulators that they bought GTECH due to Battelle's "independent" recommendations.) (10,11,12,13,14,15) Battelle later got the bright idea to do this for voting systems, but we have found little information about Batelle's specific activities. Batelle had a brief and failed foray into exit polling with Voter News Service in 2002. Black Box Voting is continuing to look into Batelle's quiet role in election related activities. (16) Anatomy of a bribe Apparently an investigation over Ohio lottery contracts erupted after MCA Games Inc won a $2.2 million contract. This was investigated for its connection with a curious bank deposit by Hughes associate Terrence McCarthy. On the same day MCA was awarded the contract, McCarthy deposited $3,000 from MCA into a Cleveland bank account, the downpayment on a $30,000 fee from MCA. Among those withdrawing funds from that bank account were Hughes's executive assistant, Daniel J Lyon, Hughes's brother Donald, and a firm called Robert E Hughes Consultant Inc. The bank account was in the name of "DTD Co." [Daniel-Terrence-Donald.] The DTD Co. bank account served as a depository for various partners, all of whom had direct ties to the Republican headquarters and GOP chairman Hughes. (17) So here's how it goes: Put somewhat legit "consulting" money into joint account and let your friends pull it out the other side. This triple-initialed joint checking account, acting as a conduit, was crude compared to some of the newer techniques (the "Dutch Sandwich," for example, and the "Shipper's Method") but we'll get to those in another installment of the Money Trail series. Back to Gallina. During Hughes' tenure as a Cuyahoga County Republican powerbroker, he helped several GOP candidates into political positions, including Mayor Ralph Perk, whose campaign manager was Pat Gallina. (18) A troublesome character, Andy Shission was partners with Gallina in a venture called AllTech Inc. (21) Shission was accused of killing a member of a rival motorcycle gang over stealing his jacket. According to newspaper reports of the time, Shission was the national treasurer for the Hell's Angels. He was indicted for two murders, but acquitted on both, and was instead convicted on tax charges. Ohio's troubles with organized crime, Hell's Angel murders, and politician indictments weren't as bad as they could have been. Indictments more often end up dismissed for politicians, businessmen and lobbyists. Ohio isn't alone in its questionable dealings. Former San Diego County Elections registrar Ray Ortiz beat a number of raps, and Lance Gough, while shilling for voting machines through ES&S predecessor Business Records Corp, was acquitted of charges including theft and allegations that he participated in payment of inappropriate expenses for two San Diego County election officials. (26) The players have become more respectable, or at least smoother, in their recent activities. And, like Tinker-toys, the politicians, vendors, businessmen and lobbyists all seem to be interchangeable, if they survive. Word to voting integrity activists: If you aren't a Tinker-toy, you aren't in the club; this should help to explain some of the blank looks you receive as you try, with sincerity and reason, to improve the system. Voting machine salesman Lance Gough is now Executive Director of the Chicago Elections Board. Robert E. Hughes left the Cuyahoga County political scene in 1991, when he was found asphyxiated in his garage from carbon monoxide poisoning, ruled an accident -- (albeit a strange one, since he was in the midst of a construction-related dispute and was reportedly found in pajamas covered by a business suit).(27) Michael A. Fox is now a Butler County Commissioner.(28) Gallina is now a lobbyist for NEC and Diebold in Ohio, in addition to handling the paperwork for the Diebold money machine, ACG Group LLC. What can we do about this? First, if you want to change the system, start by gaining a basic understanding of what "the system" actually is. That is why we're doing this unpleasant step. Learning how procurement works is the first step towards lasting reform.(29) Next in the Money Trail series: Revolvers and Hired Guns -- Latest List of Interchangeable Election People Footnotes & sources: (1) Videotaped interviews, Apr. 28 2005, by Black Box Voting: 2-min clips http://www.bbvdocs.org/videos/cook1.mpg http://www.bbvdocs.org/videos/cook2.mpg http://www.bbvdocs.org/videos/cook3.mpg (2) News article about Celebrezze death: Jul. 5 2003 - The Associated Press: "Obituaries in the News" (3) Mar. 24, 1991 � The Plain Dealer: �Cabinet pick's ties to Hell's Angel probed in '86� (4) Ohio League of Hispanic Affairs corporate documents: http://www.bbvdocs.org/IL-Cook/andrade-ohiocorps.pdf (5 ) 2004 Annual Report for International Lottery and Totalizator Systems Inc. (6) OMay 8 2005 -- Los Angeles Times: "Ohio Official Favored for State Lottery Director" (7) A Review of the Organization, Operation and Performance of the California State Lottery, Little Hoover Commission (8) Oct 22, 1993 � Los Angeles Times: Secret Recording Brags of GTECH Influence with Lottery Directors (9) Oct. 10 2004 -- The News & Observer: "Tax increases, cuts don't fall evenly on all" (10) May 11, 1987 � PR Newswire: �Lottery Director Recommends (11) Government Computer News Vol. 7, No. 19 �Judge OKs Mich. Lottery System Contract� (12) Nov. 29 1988 � Chicago Sun-Times: �$100 million lottery deal goes to G-Tech� (13) Aug. 24 1990 � Capitol News Bureau: �Mass. success suggests lottery should pay off in La.� LOUISIANA LOTTERY SERIES (14) Nov. 18, 1990 � The Washington Post: �Md. Lottery Contract A Ticket to Intrigue� (15) Sept 8 2003 -- St. Petersburg Times: �GTECH Has Winning Lottery Ticket, Checkered Past� (16) Feb. 6, 2001 � The Columbus Dispatch: �Battelle Stumps for Role in Voting Process� (17) Dec. 10, 1978 � New York Times: �Fed, state and county officials are investigating web of Ohio lottery� (18) Oct. 1, 1989 � The Plain Dealer: �Campaign aides play key roles They help determine the tone of candidates' messages� (19) removed portion relating to LoConti (20) removed portion relating to LoConti (21) Mar. 1991 � The Plain Dealer: �Cabinet pick's ties to Hell's Angel probed in '86� (22) Removed portion pending further investigation (23) Removed portion pending further investigation (24) United States of America v. Roger Stanley, Stanley Stewart and Robert Doyle, 2002 Grand Jury charges - text above removed pending further investigation, but this document seems self-explanatory (25) Dec. 27, 1992 -- The Plain Dealer: "National contractor's death remains a puzzle" -- text removed pending further investigation (26) Jul. 10, 1987 � Los Angeles Times: �Ex-registrar acquitted on theft charges� (27) Thanks to Bob Fitrakis, who provided tips for what to look for on Robert Hughes's death, along with general perspectives about several characters in Ohio corruption scandals who are not mentioned here. (28) Butler County Web site - www.bceo.org/bcdata.html (29) Nov. 9, 1999 -- The Columbus Dispatch: "State sees $60,000 proteest price tag" Black Box Voting is calling for a spending moratorium on new voting systems and components until multiple problems with election system design and integrity are addressed. Permission to reprint in full granted, as long as you include link to BlackBoxVoting.org}

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