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Staten Island's Republican DA Candidate Accuses Opponent of Fraud

By Nicholas Rizzi | July 28, 2015 12:01pm
 Joan Illuzzi's campaign for District Attorney issued a legal challenge against 4,885 signatures collected by her opponent, Michael McMahon, in the race.
Joan Illuzzi's campaign for District Attorney issued a legal challenge against 4,885 signatures collected by her opponent, Michael McMahon, in the race.
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Getty Images and U.S. Congress

STATEN ISLAND — Staten Island's Republican contender for District Attorney is questioning the legality of 4,885 signatures collected by her rival.

Joan Illuzzi's campaign issued a legal challenge against signatures collected by Democrat Michael McMahon's campaign, claiming they are fraudulent, have errors and even include the signature of a deceased resident.

John Antoniello, Chairman of the Staten Island Republican Party, announced on Friday night that Illuzzi's campaign filed legal action with the Board of Elections to challenge 385 independent and 4,500 Democratic Party signatures collected by McMahon.

"It is disgraceful that at the end of his career, Mike McMahon's campaign is submitting forged signatures and signatures of dead voters — in clear violation of the law — as he struggles to establish himself as qualified to be the chief law enforcement officer in the borough," Antoniello said in a statement.

"We'll leave it to the courts and the Board of Elections to do what is right and invalidate these fraudulent petitions, and luckily we have an honest and qualified candidate in longtime prosecutor Joan Illuzzi who will serve with integrity and pride as our next DA."

According to their claims, one of the signatures McMahon's campaign collected belonged to William Peck, who died in 2013 at the age of 76, according to his obituary.

"It's hypocritical that Mike's opponent would personally attack his integrity knowing and acknowledging that some of her supporters submitted signatures with mistakes as well," said Ashleigh Owens, a spokeswoman for McMahon. 

"Hundreds of supporters from every party go out and collect signatures during this five-week time frame and, while we ask and have faith that these supporters all do an excellent job, there are unfortunately errors made on both sides every year and that is why we are in the middle of the review process with the Board of Elections to validate the good signatures."

Illuzzi publicly admitted that her husband made errors when collecting signatures for her over the weekend, and three people filed objections against her run on the Republican Party line, the Staten Island Advance reported.

"This is yet another example of Ms. Illuzzi-Orbon bringing frivolous litigation at taxpayer expense. The Board of Elections has not even had an opportunity to finish their review and submit a clerk's report on these petitions and the Democrats found hundreds of fraudulently obtained Republican signatures," said John Gulino, chairman of the Staten Island Democratic Party in a statement.

"Here is her campaign now filing the typical political bomb-throwing lawsuits and press releases. Mike McMahon considers the job of district attorney too important and we are proud that he will continue to take the high road."

Another two filed objections against her petition for an opportunity to ballot — which lets voters write in her name — in the Sept. 10 primary against McMahon for the Conservative Party line, the Advance reported. Six people filed objections against McMahon's petitions.

McMahon, a former Congressman, will square off against Illuzzi, a former Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan, to replace Dan Donovan as Staten Island's top prosecutor. 

So far, McMahon has raised more than double the amount of money Illuzzi has.