Documents, other evidence found in Villamaino's home
Date: 10/29/2012
By Chris Maza
chrism@thereminder.comEAST LONGMEADOW — Stacks of voter registration forms and absentee ballot applications, as well as lists of registered voters were among the items discovered by law enforcement officials who executed a search warrant on Enrico "Jack" Villamaino's residence on Aug. 16.
According to court documents, which were released to the public on Oct. 22, search warrants were executed at the homes of Villamaino at 347 Somers Road, and Courtney Llewellyn, his alleged accomplice, at 359 Main St., Apt. B3 in Hampden, as well as the Town Clerk's Office as part of an investigation into a voter fraud scheme for which they were both recently indicted.
The search warrants for their residences were granted and signed by Hampden superior court judge Daniel Ford after Massachusetts State Trooper Margaret Gaffney stated in her affidavit that given the "scale and complexity of the scheme and volume of paperwork" as well as the "secretive nature of this voting law violation scheme," there was probably cause that there was evidence in one or both homes.
Two laptop computers, one tablet device and several hand-written lists on notebooks and miscellaneous pieces of paper, were among the items recovered from Villamaino's home.
Also recovered were four CDs containing voter information, including the 2009 through 2012 roll call report, a clipped bundle of mail-in voter registration forms, a clipped bundle of absentee ballot applications by family members, a separate clipped bundle of absentee ballot applications, a stapled print out containing names, addresses and dates of birth, a folder containing sign-in sheets and papers in Microsoft Excel format containing files from the Voter Registration Information System, to which Llewellyn had access.
An invoice from The Barre Group, a company that sells access to databases that its website claims help in "identifying target voters by issue concerns, advanced voter grouping, and voting history" was also recovered.
Police also found a three-page list that included the rankings of East Longmeadow police officers and a civil service lead sheet, according to the search warrant return documentation.
According to Gaffney's affidavit, the plan to defraud the voting system as it related to the Republican primary for state representative for the Second Hampden District began "on or before June 15" when the defendants, who were arraigned last week, allegedly changed registered voters' enrollment statuses.
"[The scheme] continued with the alleged July 20 delivery of approximately 265 typed absentee ballots to the East Longmeadow Town Clerk's Office and preparation for mailing of as many absentee ballots, which were not received by the intended recipients and are currently missing," Gaffney asserted. "A second group of absentee ballot applications was received by the Clerk's Office on Aug. 2
"A scheme such as this required planning, was labor intensive and time consuming, and involved generation and preparation of numerous documents," she added.
Police also recovered a host of documents and other pieces of evidence from the Clerk's Office.
On Aug. 15, a day prior to the search of the defendants' homes being searched, warrants were also executed on phone records for cell phones owned by Villamaino and Llewellyn, requesting text message records, GPS coordinates and cell site information for Aug. 10 as well as cell site information for June 15 and July 20.
In addition to finding frequent texts and phone activity between the two during the dates in question, Gaffney stated in her affidavit for the Aug. 16 warrants that the cell site information displayed unusual movements by the two, which was supported by additional investigation.
"Since the investigation commenced neither Villamaino nor Llewellyn have been seen at their residence by investigators who have surveilled their homes at different times of the day or night," she said. "Based on information received from Verizon Wireless and the personal observations of investigators, it is believed that Villamaino and Llewellyn have changed their pattern of behavior and have been staying at a location in Enfield, Conn."
Palmer District Court Judge Patricia Poehler initially impounded all search warrant affidavits and returns for 30 days upon request of the District Attorney's Office and even impounded the motions involved with those impoundments.
Assistant District Attorney Marcia Julian then filed a motion for extension of the impoundment in mid-September.
On Sept. 24,
Reminder Publications filed a motion of objection to the impoundment order and requested it be lifted, citing the recent case of the Commonwealth and another versus George W. Prescott Publishing Company, during which a judge determined that "materials filed with a court to support the issuance of a search warrant not only shed light on the functioning of law enforcement agencies, but also provide a means of understanding the court's decision to issue a warrant. Thus, we have repeatedly recognized that, when filed in court, search warrant materials are judicial records to which the public's presumptive right of access applies once the warrant has been returned."
Reminder Publications' motion read, "The matter currently in question directly affected the status of registered voters in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the subject matter within the search warrant affidavits and returns shed light into these happenings, which may or may not be linked to a former elected public official who was in office at the time the incident in question took place, making it matter of extremely high interest in the eyes of the public. As such, the public has the right to know the measures that have been taken by law enforcement to this point."
While Poehler had not yet delivered a ruling, the search warrant affidavits and returns became publicly available on Oct. 22 when the existing impoundment order was due to expire.
Julian told Poehler during a hearing that morning that she had no objections to the expiration of the order and did not plan to file a motion to extend it further, however, she requested that certain information in the documents, including names of those not directly involved with the investigation, as well as the phone numbers and social security numbers of the defendants be redacted.
Villamaino was given $10,000 bail with the stipulation that once released he would be subject to electronic monitoring while Llewellyn was released on $50,000 surety. Both are due back in court on Jan. 10, 2013 for a pretrial hearing.
