Defendants in all ten cases arising from voter registration efforts in the Alachua County Jail have now been convicted and sentenced

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Kelvin Bolton, the tenth and final defendant charged in connection with a voter registration effort that was conducted by the Alachua County Supervisor of Elections Office at the Alachua County Jail in the summer of 2020, has been sentenced to two years in state prison with credit for 604 days served.

Bolton is one of ten men who were charged with false swearing and/or fraudulent voting after a representative from Supervisor of Elections Kim Barton’s office visited the jail on several occasions in 2020 to register voters.

Bolton was charged with perjury and two counts of fraudulent voting for falsely stating on the voter registration application that he was not a convicted felon or his rights had been restored and voting in the 2020 Primary and General elections.

On November 21, Bolton entered a plea of nolo contendere to one count of fraudulent voting and was sentenced to 24 months in state prison with credit for 604 days served. The other two charges were dropped as part of the deal. On the same date, Bolton entered a plea of nolo contendere in two felony shoplifting cases; he was given the same sentence of two years in state prison in those cases, and all three sentences will run concurrently.

The other nine defendants

Previously, Dedrick Baldwin and Therris Conney were sentenced to 364 days in July 2022, Daniel Roberts was sentenced in June 2022 to three years in state prison, and Arthur Lang was sentenced to 18 months in state prison a few days later, all on similar charges. Henry Shuler was sentenced to one year and seven days in August 2022. Xavier Artis was sentenced to 13 months in prison on February 14, 2023, and Leroy James Ross, Jr., was sentenced to three years of probation in March. John Boyd Rivers was sentenced to two years of probation after a jury trial on May 16, and Christopher Timothy Wiggins was sentenced to four concurrent sentences of one year and one week in prison in June. All of the above defendants except Lang are serving the sentences concurrent with their previous sentences; Lang’s sentence extended his release date by eight months.

No charges filed against the Supervisor of Elections employee who visited the jail

Mark Glaeser, who provided the information that led to FDLE’s investigation of the voter registration effort, told Alachua Chronicle after Rivers’ trial that Supervisor of Elections Outreach Director T.J. Pyche was the first witness on the stand, as the person who visited the jail on three separate occasions to register eligible inmates to vote–February 5, 2020; July 15, 2020; and a date in September 2020. Glaeser said Pyche was asked whether he thought he should have been charged with a crime, and Pyche said, “Presumably.” Pyche was represented by his own attorney in the courtroom, as was Supervisor of Elections Kim Barton.

Glaeser also told Alachua Chronicle that FDLE Special Agent Tracey Rousseau testified during Rivers’ trial that she had recommended charging Pyche with misdemeanors in her sworn complaint, but Glaeser said the statute of limitations had already expired on those charges at the time of the trial.