Justice Department charges nine more Pennsylvania residents with voting as noncitizens

Nine more people living in Pennsylvania have been federally charged with voting while not U.S. citizens, Spotlight PA and the Pennsylvania Capital-Star reported, citing a Justice Department release issued Friday. None of the charges has been proven, and those accused are presumed innocent.

The reports, produced with the nonprofit election outlet Votebeat, said the latest cases bring to 20 the statewide count of people charged since September with crimes connected to noncitizen voting. The outlets found no evidence linking the cases to one another or pointing to fraud on a broad or organized scale.

Two defendants face two counts apiece of voting by an alien, covering both the 2022 and 2024 general elections: Philadelphia resident Artur Kopacz, 50, and Harrisburg resident Inna Henry, 52. Six others are each accused of a single count tied to the 2024 vote. They are Fountain Hill resident Osmal Loy, 70; Merion Station resident Yehuda Peer, 30; Philadelphia resident Alfredo Santiesteban, 73; Selinsgrove residents Joyce Donovan, 38, and Nina Nyawara, 21; and Effort resident Joyce Pitts, 80. Luzerne resident Nourten Kuruju, 64, faces one count stemming from the 2022 election.

According to Spotlight PA, the department identified eight of the nine as lawful permanent residents and did not state Santiesteban's immigration status.

Chuck Peruto, who represents Kopacz, told the outlets his client passed the citizenship exam two times but left out a certified document proving a clean criminal record, and cast ballots during the wait because he thought he was allowed to. "He's been here since he was 17 and is now 50, happily married to an American citizen," Peruto said in an email. Lawyers for several other defendants either did not reply or could not be found, the outlets said.

Votebeat and Spotlight PA reviewed election crime cases dating to mid-2015 and tallied 176 ballots alleged to be fraudulent among more than 67 million votes, a figure that counts the newest charges. Election officials acknowledge such fraud happens but describe it as very uncommon, the reports said.

The Trump administration has asserted that Pennsylvania's rolls include thousands of possible noncitizens. In July, the Department of Homeland Security said it had flagged 14,576 such registrations in the state, though it has yet to give that list to Pennsylvania officials, Spotlight PA reported.

In a separate development, WHYY reported that a federal judge in Oakland, California, directed the administration to suspend a DHS probe into possible noncitizen registrations in nine states, Pennsylvania among them, through the end of voting on Nov. 3. Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin concluded the effort depended on flawed data and was intimidating groups that help people vote. In a statement, DHS said it has no intention of investigating people it considers citizens, according to WHYY.

Compiled by True News from reporting by Spotlight PA, Pennsylvania Capital-Star, CBS Philadelphia and WHYY. Each outlet's original story is linked below.

Originally published by True News: https://truenews.bagleyenterprises.net/stories/406