The case against Richard Saint Angel was scheduled to resume on Thursday, Sept. 29, after the Weekly Beat’s press time. For an updated story, see the main page.
Richard Saint Angel’s last chance to get on the November ballot is in the hands of a judge this week.
Pat Myers, who defeated Saint Angel in the Democratic primary in the supervisor’s race earlier this month, has challenged his bid to run in November on the independent Tax Relief line, alleging widespread signature forgery in his designating petitions. In testimony on Friday, Saint Angel admitted that some of the signatures were invalid, while attorneys in the case agreed to toss out about 500 of them altogether.
The next hearing in the case was scheduled to take place on Thursday at the Dutchess County Courthouse, with more witnesses scheduled to testify for Myers’ side.
Judge Francis Nicolai, the administrative judge for the State Supreme Court’s 9th District in White Plains, replaced Judge James V. Brands, who recused himself from the case because fellow judge Gerald V. Hayes is a potential witness.
Hayes’ address appears on one of Saint Angel’s petitions, but he has denied signing it. He was unavailable to testify at Friday’s hearing because he was on vacation.
At the outset of the hearing, Judge Nicolai appeared irritated that attorneys for Myers and Saint Angel hadn’t agreed on which signatures were attributed to people who were either deceased or nonexistent.
“Why didn’t you bring this to the Board of Elections to check if a person is deceased?” he said, just minutes into the hearing. “That’s the first place where you go with these things.”
After just 15 minutes, he called a recess for the attorneys to confer about the signatures.
Attorney Judith Levin of Washingtonville and attorney Ann Barcher, the former town supervisor who is seeking the 5th Ward Town Board seat as a third-party candidate, represented Saint Angel on Friday. Saint Angel had previously been representing himself. Poughkeepsie-based attorney David Sears represented Myers.
Signatures examined
Myers said that of 275 signatures examined during the break, 175 of them were deemed invalid. “I was amazed,” she said. “That’s a pretty incredible rate of falsification.”
Levin said Saint Angel needed 581 signatures on his Tax Relief ballot to qualify as a candidate, and had acquired 1,161.
On Wednesday, Sears said that in subsequent meetings with Levin over the weekend and on Tuesday, they agreed that a total of approximately 500 signatures were invalid. He added that Saint Angel actually submitted less than the 1,161 petitions Levin claimed, because nine pages were missing from his submission.
Sears said enough signatures may have been eliminated to render the petitions invalid. “We are extremely close to that, if not below that,” he said of the 581-signature threshold.
A signature can be declared invalid for three reasons, Sears explained: if the person signed a previous petition for the candidate, if there is no registered voter at the address indicated or if the signature is illegible and does not match the signature on the registration card on file at the Board of Elections.
Forgery denied
When Saint Angel, 24, took the witness stand on Friday under questioning from Sears, he conceded that some of his signatures were invalid because the people had already signed another of his petitions. However, he repeatedly asserted that he had personally witnessed every signature on the petition.
“Anyone who signed my petition claimed to be that person, which satisfies the law,” he said. “I did not stop to ask for a driver’s license or four forms of ID.”
Sears also called 13 witnesses who lived at addresses appearing on Saint Angel’s petition, but claimed the signatures did not belong to them or anyone in their households. One woman even said she was out of the country on the date that she had purportedly signed the petition.
Questioned about those people, as well as signatures attributed to houses that don’t exist, Saint Angel repeated the same answer several times: “If that’s the (address) I put down, then that’s the house number I believed I was at.”
Sears noted that one petition attributed a signature to a house on Star Lane, a street that apparently doesn’t exist. “I looked on a map and couldn’t find it,” Saint Angel admitted on the stand. “It’s possible I mistook it for another road.”
Sears also questioned signatures attributed to 31 Schoolhouse Lane, which a neighbor testified doesn’t exist, and 42 and 44 Schoolhouse Lane. “Did you notice, when you got to 42 and 44 Schoolhouse Lane, that it was a playground for the Martha Lawrence School?” Sears asked.
“There are many petitions which are a wavy line – there are no letters,” Judge Nicolai told the attorneys. If there’s not a wavy line [on file] at the Board of Elections, then we have a problem.”
“It’s a long, arduous task,” Myers said after Friday’s session, “but honesty and ethics should count for something. The people who represent us should exhibit those qualities. I don’t think in court today we saw Mr. Saint Angel exhibiting that.”
State Board of Election guidelines call for this year’s general election ballots to be finalized by Oct. 3, meaning Saint Angel’s case must be resolved by then. Official results reveal that he failed to capture either the Democratic or Independence Party lines in this year’s primary election, meaning he will be off November’s ballot if his petitions are thrown out.