The Justice Department announced Wednesday that a federal grand jury in Minnesota had indicted ten noncitizens on separate counts of voter fraud, in elections from the 2022 midterms through the 2024 presidential election and this year's August primary.
All ten defendants are lawful permanent residents. The indictments were returned Sept. 24 and the defendants have entered or are in the process of making initial appearances in federal court.
"The law is clear, only American citizens may vote in American elections," Attorney General Todd Blanche said. "Enforcement should not be a partisan concept."
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the administration would never let the votes of citizens be 'canceled out' by noncitizens and that those charged will face deportation as well as criminal penalties. U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen said his office will prosecute anyone who swears to citizenship to get a ballot.
Nine of the ten defendants are accused of actions related to the Nov. 5, 2024, general election or the registration period leading up to it.
Bhator Konah Bryant, 61, a Liberian national, is charged with one count of making a false claim of citizenship when registering to vote on Oct. 18, 2024.
Edvile Vaidoto Edmunds, 59, of Lithuania, is charged with one count of voting by an alien on Nov. 8, 2022.
Joshua Frederick Kofi Edzie, 63, of Ghana, is charged with two counts of making a false claim of citizenship and one of voting by an alien, in October 2024 and the Aug. 11, 2026, primary.
Paul Kras, 78, of Germany, is charged with one count of voting by an alien on Nov. 5, 2024.
The remaining six are each charged with one count of making a false claim of citizenship and voting by an alien on Nov. 5, 2024: Alan Barbu Kargbo, 48, and Chis Adam Pettiquoi, 43, both of Liberia; Fadil Rasim Ozegovic, 58, of Bosnia; Aparecido Donizetti Padovan, 62, of Brazil; Christian Liam Schenk, 47, of Canada; and Hester Sophia Weihmann, 69, of South Africa.
Most made initial appearances before U.S. Magistrate Judge Elsa M. Bullard in Minnesota on Sept. 28 and 29. Schenk was due to appear in the District of Massachusetts on Wednesday.
Under 18 U.S.C. §1015(f), making a false claim of citizenship to vote carries up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Voting by an alien, under 18 U.S.C. §611, is a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine.
The investigation was conducted by Homeland Security Investigations. The case is being prosecuted by First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph S. Teirab.
The cases are part of a broader effort by the administration to crack down on noncitizen voting. A senior DOJ official told Fox News this month that the administration has charged about 50 noncitizens for illegal voting. Mullin said in a Sept. 20 interview that the Department of Homeland Security has 1,620 open investigations, made 151 arrests and is reviewing more than 300,000 additional cases. It charged 16 people in seven states on Sept. 19 and 12 more on Sept. 28.
There were 3,272,414 votes in Minnesota in the 2024 election, according to the secretary of state's office.
ProPublica reported in August that HSI agents had followed hundreds of leads in Minnesota with little to show for it, and that the bureau had referred just one illegal voting case in Minnesota for prosecution as of May. Teirab was one of the officials mentioned in that article. An indictment is only an accusation, and defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
