A trio accused of faking nomination petition signatures will stand trial in Macomb County Circuit Court after a Warren district judge bound them over Thursday following a joint preliminary exam held over numerous days and months beginning in January.
Shawn and Jamie Wilmoth, both of Warren, and their business partner — Willie Reed, of Florida — each faced more than two dozen charges in 37th District Court in Warren before Judge John Chmura. Their pretrials are set for June 24 in the circuit court.
They are accused of operating a criminal enterprise that charged several campaigns more than $700,000 for valid signature collection, then delivered thousands of forged signatures on nomination petitions to eight of the campaigns.
Seven candidates, including five GOP gubernatorial candidates in 2022 who were provided with fraudulent signatures, were disqualified from appearing on the ballot and one candidate withdrew, prosecutors with the Michigan Attorney General's Office previously said.
The Wilmoths and their attorneys appeared in court when Chmura gave his approximately 45-minute-long oral opinion on the bind-over. Reed and his attorney appeared via Zoom. Chmura said this was one of the more interesting cases he has had in his 28 years on the bench.
While the defendants might not agree with his decision, Chmura said, this took longer to decide because of the arguments the three defense attorneys presented. Neither the assistant attorney general nor the defense attorneys for the Wilmoths had comment after the hearing. Reed's attorney told the court that while he didn't agree with Chmura's decision, he appreciated the court's time and effort on the matter.
Chmura said the testimony showed there was enough evidence pointing to some fraud based on what validators hired by the Wilmoths and Reed saw and testified to in court and that the trio knew the signatures were fraudulently obtained as they were made aware of this concern from the validators.
The trio's preliminary exam began in January, lasting three days before continuing Feb. 29 for Ryan Kelley, former Republican gubernatorial candidate, to testify after being released from federal prison. Kelley served a 60-day sentence after pleading guilty to a federal misdemeanor charge for participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
The trio allegedly provided Kelley's campaign with no signatures at all, state prosecutors said.
Kelley testified via video that his campaign paid Petition Reeds LLC $15,000 to get 3,000 valid signatures from voters for the 2022 gubernatorial race. He said he talked with Shawn Wilmoth and that Reed's signature was on the contract in addition to emails back and forth he had.
Kelley said around March 2022 the campaign was told there were 1,000 or 1,200 signatures and that they were working to collect more. Closer to the time the petitions were due, Kelley testified the campaign started to "get the cold shoulder" and realized no signatures would be provided.
"We did not receive anything from them, no," Kelley testified.
Upon cross-examination, Reed's attorney, Wright Blake, asked whether Kelley asked for the money back. Kelley testified that he didn't believe the campaign asked for a refund.
The exam wrapped up in March with closing arguments. Michigan Assistant Attorney General Chris Kessel asked Chmura to bind over all of the defendants on all the charges.
"These victims relied on the promises made by these defendants," he said, adding that "from the jump" there was fraud going on.
Kessel said it was "crystal clear" the trio worked together to sign the contracts and deceive the victims. The victims then got "ghosted" by the defendants when the victims were removed from the ballot and tried to reach out to the defendants.
Defense attorneys argued there was no probable cause to bind over their clients during their closings.
Noel Erinjeri, assistant public defender for Shawn Wilmoth, said prosecutors lacked evidence against his client and that 37 people were suspected by the state Bureau of Elections of submitting false signatures, but were not interviewed.
Susan Dunn said most of those who testified said they had no contact with her client, Jamie Wilmoth, and there was no evidence that her client talked with the victims, got any money or uttered a promise to anyone.
Blake said "this is an industry built on error," and that most of those who testified said they had no contact with Reed and he didn't say that he ever told anyone to forge a signature.
Prosecutors previously said Shawn Wilmoth is owner/operator of First Choice LLC and co-owner of Mack Douglas LLC, and Reed is owner/operator of Petition Reeds LLC and co-owner of Mack Douglas.
Many of the candidates who hired the firms and two validators who worked for the trio were among those who testified. The validators testified they were told to "push" through signatures if the information matched or to "mark it good" despite concerns they raised.
More than a dozen witnesses testified for the Attorney General's Office, which filed the charges in June 2023.
The trio is accused of defrauding the 2022 gubernatorial campaigns of former Detroit Police Chief James Craig, Donna Brandenburg, Perry Johnson, Michael Brown and Michael Markey, and judicial candidates John Cahalan, Tricia Dare and John Michael Malone.
The forgeries were detected by the Michigan Bureau of Elections and it was determined the campaigns of Craig, Brandenburg, Johnson, Brown, Markey, Dare and Malone had not met the qualifications to appear on the ballot.
The Michigan Department of State referred the matter to the Attorney General's Office in June 2022.
Contact Christina Hall: chall@freepress.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @challreporter.
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