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UPDATE, 5:26 P.M., Oct. 23, 2026: This story has been updated to include a comment from Artur Kopacz’s attorney.
What happened?
The Department of Justice has charged nine more Pennsylvania residents with voting as a noncitizen, according to a Friday press release.
The charges, which have not yet been proved, come amid the Trump administration’s nationwide crackdown on election crimes ahead of the 2026 midterms.
There is no evidence the cases are related or that voter fraud is happening on a widespread or coordinated scale.
Who was charged?
Artur Kopacz, 50, of Philadelphia, Inna Henry, 52, of Harrisburg, were both charged with two counts of voting by an alien in the 2022 and 2024 general elections.
Osmal Loy, 70, of Fountain Hill, Yehuda Peer, 30, of Merion Station, Alfredo Santiesteban, 73, of Philadelphia, Joyce Donovan, 38, of Selinsgrove, Nina Nyawara, 21, of Selinsgrove, and Joyce Pitts, 80, of Effort, were all charged with with one count of voting by an alien in the 2024 election.
Nourten Kuruju, 64, of Luzerne, was charged with one count of voting by an alien in the 2022 general election.
Kopacz, Loy, Peer, Donovan, Henry, Nyawara, Pitts, and Kuruju are all lawful permanent residents of the U.S., according to the department. The immigration status of Santiesteban was not listed.
Chuck Peruto, Kopacz’s attorney, said Kopacz passed the citizenship test twice, but failed to include a certified copy of his criminal extract showing he had no criminal record, and voted while waiting to become a citizen because he believed he was eligible.
“He’s been here since he was 17 and is now 50, happily married to an American citizen,” Peruto said in an email.
Attorneys for Donovan, Henry, Kuruju, Nyawara, and Pitts did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
Attorneys for Loy, Peer, Santiesteban could not be located, and no one responded to emails sent to addresses associated with Loy and Santiesteban.
What is the context?
The charges announced Monday bring the total number of individuals charged with noncitizen-voting-related crimes in Pennsylvania to 20 since September.
Election officials contend that while voter fraud, including noncitizen voting, does occasionally happen, it is exceedingly rare.
A Votebeat and Spotlight PA analysis of election crimes since mid-2015 found just 176 allegedly fraudulent ballots have been cast out of more than 67 million votes cast in that period, even if these latest charges — which haven’t yet been proved — are included. If the nine individuals charged Friday are found to have illegally voted, their votes would represent 0.00009% of all votes cast in those elections.
The Trump administration has claimed that there are thousands of potential noncitizens on Pennsylvania’s voter rolls. In July, the Department of Homeland Security claimed it had identified 250,000 potential noncitizens registered to vote in four states, including 14,576 in Pennsylvania. As of today, DHS has not yet shared the list of potential noncitizen voters with Pennsylvania officials nor has the state spoken to DHS since a Sept. 8 email in which the Department laid out its methodology for finding the potential noncitizen voters.
Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.
