Earlier this month, Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White was convicted of six felonies after a jury found he willfully continued to serve on the council of a town in which he no longer lived and willfully voted in the wrong precinct in the 2010 Republican primary. His last chance of getting his office back was getting the charges reduced to misdemeanors. Late Friday, a judge refused and sentenced him to one year's house arrest.
White, who was convicted Feb. 4, has argued for more than a year that the charges against him were politically motivated and that he never intentionally defrauded anyone.
But Hamilton Superior Court Judge Steven Nation didn't buy White's arguments at a two-hour sentencing hearing Thursday.
Nation said he thinks White intentionally defrauded the public by using his ex-wife's address to vote in the May 2010 primary and continuing to take his Fishers Town Council salary after he had moved out of his district.
"Because of what he did," Nation said, "I believe he violated the trust of the people."
White apparently didn't help himself by going on Faux News and claiming that the verdict was "a miscarriage of justice."
A few days before Christmas, an Indianapolis judge ruled that White was ineligible to run since he was no longer a legally registered voter, and declared his Democratic opponent, Vop Osilli, the rightful winner. White appealed that order, but Friday's sentence ends any chance of White regaining office.
White had been trying for some time to get the charges reduced to misdemeanors, since a felony conviction would have not only cost him his office but stripped him of his law license as well. However, it looks like his continued insistence that he never intentionally defrauded anyone made those negotiations a dead letter.
This saga isn't nearly over yet. Governor Mitch Daniels appointed White's deputy, Jerry Bonnet, as interim Secretary of State after White's sentence became final. If the ruling declaring Osilli the rightful winner holds up, not only does Osilli become Secretary of State, but the Republicans will have legally received no votes in the Secretary of State contest and will therefore be knocked down to minor party status. Under Indiana law, a party's Secretary of State candidate must get at least 10 percent of the vote for his party to be considered a major party. Depending on how long it takes for the appeal to work its way through the courts, it could force the Indiana GOP to choose its Senate nominee in a state convention--one that, by all accounts, would all but assure Dick Lugar loses to Richard Mourdock.
Even if Osilli doesn't end up in the Secretary of State's chair, at least we have something to throw in the Repubs' face when they whine about voter fraud.