Attorney General Announces Felony Election Law Charges for ‘Illegal Coordination’

Last Wednesday, New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced the filing of a felony complaint against three people in Erie County for “illegal campaign coordination.”

The charges, three violations of Election Law § 14-126(5) and one violation of Penal Law § 175.35 (Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree) were lodged against G. Steven Pigeon, Kristy Mazurek, and David Pfaff.  All three have plead not guilty to the charges.

The charges arose out of a joint investigation conducted by the state Attorney General, the FBI and the New York State Board of Elections. The three are alleged to have “knowingly and willfully engaged in illegal campaign coordination” while acting on behalf of the Western New York Progressive Caucus (WNYPC), independent expenditure committee, in connection with three political candidates in the September 10, 2013 Democratic primary in Erie County.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said:

“These charges send a clear message: we will aggressively enforce our state’s election laws.  As alleged in our criminal complaint, the defendants in this case flouted the law to fund their own handpicked candidates for office in Erie County. As alleged, the defendants’ use of a political committee to circumvent the law and undermine the integrity of these elections was an affront to Erie County voters – and we intend to hold them accountable.”

This appears to be the first prosecution brought under New York’s Election Law for illegal coordination between a PAC and an independent expenditure committee.

Independent expenditure committees can raise unlimited amounts of money, and they are permitted to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections.  However, independent expenditure committees are not permitted to make contributions to a candidate’s authorized committee, either directly or by coordination of their expenditures with the candidate’s committee.  Doing so constitutes a contribution, and if the amount in question exceeds the race’s contribution limit, this becomes an illegal contribution to the candidate.

Read news coverage of this story from the State of Politics blog, the Buffalo News, the Times Union and Politico NY (behind a paywall).