We caught the petition fraudsters on Skid Row in Los Angeles on video accessing an online database
of registered voters and giving names of registered voters from that database to the
homeless to impersonate those voters and signed petitions in other people's names.
Committing felony election fraud and forgery all for $3 a piece.
We showed this footage to disenfranchise voters whose signatures were forged on the petition
and those voters say throw the book at them.
Now I don't have to sign any other petitions anymore.
Yeah prosecute them and I'm proud to believe in worse if they've done worse.
Kim Higbee and I tracked down Brenda Brown to inform her that she's been committing
federal felonies and election fraud.
You gave cash for a voter registration form you know it's a federal crime right?
Who do you work for? Who's giving you the cash?
Join the good guys.
Join us. Be a hero, blow the whistle on it Brenda.
Here you go. We turn off all recording devices as requested and go inside.
And using the information she provided to us we tracked down the people that hired Brenda Brown.
If we do something wrong out there we should be prosecuted.
Tony Moore even mentioning the database they were using sigvalid.com.
There's a data app that they use too.
Sigvalid.com.
You want me to tell you what the problem is?
What is it?
We catch people all the time doing fraud.
The state does not prosecute.
If there's no consequences to what you're doing doesn't matter.
Over the past few weeks my team and I have been undercover in Los Angeles
investigating an elaborate pyramid scheme involving election fraud, ballot fraud,
unregistered petition circulators, identity theft, and signature forgery.
All state and federal felonies.
Well today we take you on another level.
Deeper we go.
We were able to record one of these fraudsters directly in the act
of obtaining a false identity for a homeless person to use on a petition
but he obtained it using a mysterious online database.
The fraudulent petitioner selects Los Angeles, enters a zip code 90501,
and then a generic name, Chris.
It is safe to assume that there is a Chris in every zip code
so these search parameters will give him multiple Chris's
in the zip code 90501
that he can get this homeless person to pose as on his petition.
Okay I'm doing one here.
Chris, I'll give you an anonymity.
This is the last name you're going to use.
You're not going to use your name.
I mean I'm giving you a name because you don't use your first name.
Okay so the last name will be
C-A-S-T-T-E-L-L-O, address.
The fraudster reads off Chris Costello's address
which we are omitting from this report to protect that innocent person's privacy.
You can see the URL of the website the fraudster is using online.sigvalid.com.
My team attempted to access this site but we were met with a login page
which begs the question how did this individual get access to that website?
More on that later.
The fraudster has now given the homeless person
all the information he needs to sign the petition in Chris Costello's name.
The homeless man will now forge Chris Costello's signature on the petition.
The petition fraudster notifies his co-conspirator.
The man is finished signing all of the petitions and they proceed to pay him
$3 is all it takes in exchange for election fraud, felonies and forgery.
We then went to the address that the fraudster read out from the website
to speak to the current resident.
His first name was not Chris but his last name was Costello.
So I don't mean to alarm you. My name is Michael Casey.
I'm with a journalist the O'Keeffe Media Group.
We're doing a story on a fraudulent petition that's circulation going on.
It's in Skid Row and your name is actually being used by some fraudsters.
Costello he's folding up there and then wash.
That's your address right?
So there he is on a database right there pulling up your name and Torrance.
Two bucks cash.
I'm not signing no more petitions from the stores now.
No, I'm not signing any other petitions anymore.
You can confirm that that's your address, that's your name and everything
and they took it but that was not you who signed it.
That is my address, my zip code, my city, where I live at.
And ever since I've been registered to Volson since 1996 until present
I've never been to Skid Row like you asked.
So do you believe, sir and ma'am, that these people should be prosecuted for this,
you know, for stealing people's identities and everything and sign this illegally, you know?
Yeah, prosecute them and I'll probably believe in worse if they've done worse.
Yeah, the governor is now saying he's going to investigate,
the federal government's going to investigate it now.
The whole governor, the new one coming in.
You never know, right?
That's why I said which one, because remember,
he might be out of office by the end by this next election.
I appreciate your time, sir, is there anything else you want to say?
Everybody be careful what you sign.
Yep.
You may remember this woman, Brenda Brown from our previous piece on the scheme.
We went to her address to make her aware that we had recorded her in the act
and that she was not only violating California election law
but also committing a federal felony.
We're in Brenda Brown's apartment complex.
That's the individual who paid cash for registration.
That's a federal felony and we're at her door.
Hey, Brenda Brown.
Yes, sir.
Hey, may I talk to you for a moment?
How you doing?
James O'Keefe.
Is this video?
No, no, this is the cash that you gave for registration form.
It's a federal felony.
It's a federal felony to give cash.
Oh, by the end?
So what's going on now?
This is you on tape.
So what's going on?
What's going on is that it's a federal crime
and the Department of Justice is looking into this because
you gave cash for a voter registration form.
You know it's a federal crime, right?
So what's going on?
What's going on?
Well, what's going on is I'm a journalist and I published a video about it.
That's you, right?
Ask you why you did it.
Why did you do it?
Who do you work for?
Who's giving you the cash?
Join the good guys.
Join us.
Be a hero.
Blow the whistle on it, Brenda.
Come to our side.
Take it off.
You could be a hero and tell the world who's giving you the cash.
We want to work with you.
I'll talk to you, but I'm going to talk to them.
Okay.
Very good.
I'll do that.
Here you go.
Just me, right?
Yeah, come on.
I'll be right back.
Brenda Brown did not agree to speaking on the record,
but she did surrender some very interesting documentation to us.
Brenda handed us a stack of petitions which she had not submitted yet
and something immediately caught our attention.
Under declaration of circulator, Brenda hadn't signed it herself.
It was instead signed by a man named Stephen Nelson, along with his address.
So we tracked down this Stephen Nelson to figure out why.
How do you know Brenda?
I just met her right outside my apartment and she was just going to the bus stop.
And I said, why don't you make a little extra money doing signatures, but doing chemistry?
So we started doing it.
But what I didn't know Chloe is that she was going downtown Los Angeles
with around some of the homeless people and paying them to sign the petitions.
I never went down there with her.
I never knew she was doing that.
And it's a little bit my fault because I was supposed to keep a tight eye on her
because I didn't want to sign off on the petitions.
I immediately cut all ties with her.
Since they found out about the lady, he said he couldn't accept any more petitions from me.
Oh, I see.
Yes, ma'am.
So these are the ones that you've done yourself?
No, no, no.
Mrs. Brown, she did those when she was not complete.
So these are all from her?
Yes, ma'am.
Stephen Nelson claims that these petitions were filled out and delivered to him by Brenda Brown.
Notice that the Declaration of Circulator has not yet been signed.
This backs up what we noticed on the petitions that Brenda Brown surrendered to us.
That Stephen Nelson was signing as the circulator despite Brenda Brown doing the circulating.
This is what Brenda Brown was referring to when she called it all a quote pyramid game.
So it's like a pyramid game.
If I were to hire you, you'd be under me.
Yeah, I'm under him and you're under me.
Now, all of this is in violation of multiple California state laws,
including Elections Code 104, which specifically refers to the Declaration of the Circulator
and states quote, each section of the petition or paper shall have attached to it
a declaration signed by the circulator of the petition on paper setting forth
and the circulator's own hand the following.
But the circulator circulated the section and witnessed the appended signatures being written.
You would sign the bottom of them, right?
Yes, ma'am.
Okay.
Yes, ma'am.
And do you know by signing, you're declaring that you observe these people signing?
Do you know that you are declaring that you saw this person sign the petition?
I would say 80 or 90% of the time I did.
And did you know that she was also registering people to vote?
Well, I told her not to do that, but she would come back and have
all those registration forms that I kept on there.
That's too much paperwork.
And to make it easier for us not to do that, just get the signatures.
I never knew she was doing that.
As soon as I did, I cut ties with her at the station and I talked to her since.
Another document that Brenda Brown gave us was a paycheck.
The paycheck was from a company called One More Petition.
It is primarily operated by Tony Moore, the man whose signature is on this check.
On One More Petition's business profile, Tony Moore is listed as the only principal
employee, so he caught up with him to get his opinion on Brenda's actions.
I wanted to ask if you have seen the story that was published?
Which one?
About Brenda Brown, her right there?
No.
Does she work for you? Did she work for you before?
I have a copy of a check and we paid her.
Okay, yeah.
She still works for you though, right?
She did. She hasn't turned in in a long time.
Because you know, Brenda was paying in Skid Row.
There's a video.
Yeah, I know.
That's why we don't deal with her anymore.
Because she found out that she was paying cash.
Can't say that.
Okay.
I can't say anything about that.
Because she was paying two to three dollars to...
And that is illegal and she should be fined and she should be sent to jail.
That's my opinion on it.
Yes, Mr. Moore.
If we do something wrong out there, we should be prosecuted.
The journalist then questions Mr. Moore on whether he is aware that the petitioners
are not just paying the homeless to sign,
but also providing them with fraudulent names and addresses of registered voters
and asks where they might be getting that information.
Some people will go to the roll, they actually go down to one of the cities
and get the registers roll.
Okay, I've seen...
This is a data app that they use to...
Yeah.
This seems to be extracted from the DMV.
Correct.
And we use that all the time.
You use it?
Oh, yes.
For what reason?
To check to see if they're registered to vote.
To vote.
And what is that app called?
What is that?
Sigvalid.com.
You heard right, Tony Moore names Sigvalid.com.
The same Sigvalid.com that we caught fraudulent petitioners using
to find registered voter names and addresses
and then giving them to the unregistered homeless
so that they can forge their signatures.
Tony Moore goes on to claim that Sigvalid is open and accessible to the public,
which we already know is not true.
And who provides you guys that login?
It's open to anybody.
I try to get on it, but I'm not able to.
Yeah, Sigvalid.com.
Yeah, it's open to everybody.
It's interesting because you need a username and a password.
I don't have that.
Well, now you need a username and password to get onto
our databases.
They were captures on video of them using that particular app.
Sure, everybody uses it.
But they're needing a username and a password.
Right.
No, well, I don't.
Nobody else does.
You shouldn't.
Tony Moore goes on to claim that these petition circulating companies
catch their employees committing fraud, quote,
all the time, but the state never prosecutes.
I'm very glad if Brenda is doing something wrong.
It's not just print out.
Mr. Moore, I understand that, but I'm saying there's hundreds of
all there's going to grow in everywhere.
You want me to tell you what the problem is?
What is it?
We catch people all the time doing fraud.
The state does not prosecute.
So why should these people care if the state isn't going
to come through and prosecute these people?
If there's no consequences, that's why the consequences that we
find when we find something, we put them on the note by list
and they can't they can't do petitions in California anymore.
They can go to other states and do it.
If there's no consequences to what you're doing, it doesn't matter.
Especially now paying and providing the homeless person a
registered voter's name and address.
That is against the law.
Yes, it is a felony.
It is a felony, but if nothing happens with it.
Now we happen to agree with Tony Moore's closing statement here.
If there are no consequences or disincentives,
then nothing really matters.
If there are no consequences, then why do we even have these laws?
Or do we even live in a nation of laws?
Nobody has been arrested yet.
I've promised you that arrests would be coming because these crimes
are so egregious and so non-circumstantial.
It's directly on tape.
It's incontrovertible.
There must be arrests.
Otherwise we are entering a post-constitutional republic
and frankly entering a constitutional crisis.
There were police officers who visited my headquarters yesterday
to give me some type of papers to hold me accountable,
but we need to see the people who've committed the crimes
and committed the fraud, felonies, misdemeanors, federal felonies.
They need to face accountability.
And if you witnessed fraud like this,
whether it's on Skid Row or deep inside the government,
if you have information, please reach out to us,
especially since the Treasury Secretary has announced incentive
for whistleblowers, perhaps this is the only path forward
to make this type of investigative reporting sustainable.
That's tips at okeethmediagroup.com or our tip line on signal at 914-491-9395.
That's 914-491-9395.
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