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Rep.
Pedro Colon is shown in this file photo speaking to a
crowd in Milwaukee.
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MADISON - State prosecutors
have decided not to charge Rep. Pedro Colon with falsifying
nomination signatures, closing the books on a complaint his
primary opponent filed last year.
In an August memo that the
state Justice Department released Wednesday, agency attorneys
wrote they believe nomination papers Colon certified himself
include four signatures from people who didn't sign them. But
they said they probably don't have enough evidence to prove
any intentional wrongdoing, noting Colon still had enough
legitimate signatures to get on the ballot.
"A felony conviction
leading to the vacancy of his office would seemingly be
contrary to the will of the voters in that district and
excessively harsh in this case," the memo said.
Colon did not immediately
return a message left at his state Capitol office late
Wednesday afternoon.
Prosecutors did, however,
charge a woman with falsifying signatures on Colon's papers
and voting under a false address. Yadira E. Colon, 42, faces
two counts of election fraud and two counts of falsifying
nomination signatures. She is not related to the lawmaker.
The Justice Department's moves
cap an investigation into a complaint from one of Colon's 2008
primary opponents. Laura Manriquez had claimed some addresses
on Colon's papers were incomplete or invalid and some
signatures appeared to be in the same handwriting.
The state Government
Accountability Board in July 2008 found Colon had 241 valid
signatures, more than the 200 needed to get on the ballot.
Manriquez asked the Milwaukee County district attorney to look
into it. That office passed the matter to the state Justice
Department. Colon, meanwhile, went on to defeat Manriquez in
the September primary and win re-election in the November
general election.
The Justice Department's memo
said the investigation clearly supported allegations that
papers Yadira Colon circulated contained forged signatures.
According to Wednesday's criminal complaint, Yadira Colon
forged 10 names, including the names of a Milwaukee family she
stayed with briefly in 2007.
She also used the family's
address on an absentee ballot she filed in March 2008, ahead
of the state's April elections, even though she had lived in
Oshkosh for months. The complaint lists her last known address
as York County Prison in Pennsylvania.
The complaint did not offer any
insight into her motives. She faces up to 14 years in prison
and $40,000 in fines. Online court records did not list an
attorney for her.
As for Colon himself, the memo
said the lawmaker had certified that he circulated four
nomination papers himself, although his signature looked
different on two of them. Colon told investigators he did
indeed circulate the papers and signed the certifications.
Investigators also found two
separate incidents in which one person signed more than one
name on the papers Colon certified.
In one instance, a woman signed
both her name and her husband's name at a school function
where Colon was speaking in June 2008. The woman said a school
employee circulated the papers.
In the second instance, some
days later that month, Colon approached a group of people on a
porch in Milwaukee and asked them to sign his papers. A woman
signed her name as well as the names of her sister, her mother
and her boyfriend.
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