Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Pennsylvania’s free newsletter here.
A federal judge sentenced two former local officials from southeast Pennsylvania to harsher sentences than prosecutors requested, including prison time, for their roles in an attempt to steal a 2021 mayoral election.
“In the court’s view there are very few crimes in our federal code which are more serious than what you have committed,” Judge Harvey Bartle III told defendant Md Nurul Hasan, the former council vice president and mayoral candidate in Millbourne Borough, who pleaded guilty in April to election-related fraud charges. “What you have done is undermine our democratic process.”
The judge sentenced Hasan to 36 months in prison, along with one year of supervised release. Another defendant, former council member Md Rafikul Islam, was sentenced to a year and a day in prison, plus one year of supervised release and $1,700 in fines. The judge admonished prosecutors for recommending a lighter punishment for Islam.
The third defendant, council member Md Munsur Ali, will be sentenced next week. Ali is still on the council, despite calls for him to step down.
Federal investigators charged the men in February with multiple counts of fraudulent voter registration and related crimes in a failed scheme to steal the mayoral election for Hasan, who ran a write-in campaign after losing the Democratic primary to fellow council member Mahabubul Tayub.
Hasan, Ali, and Islam conspired to obtain personal information from non-Millbourne residents and register them to vote in Millbourne, according to the federal indictment, which came more than three years after the election. Hasan and Ali then requested mail ballots on behalf of those voters and cast them for Hasan, the indictment charged. They had ultimately registered nearly three dozen people fraudulently, the indictment said.
Tayub won the general election anyway.
The three men pleaded guilty in April to all counts. Hasan also faces pending charges in state court.
After hearing his sentence and exiting the courtroom, Islam nearly fainted, only to be caught by a bailiff and a friend. Outside the courthouse, Islam said he was helping “a friend” when he allowed Hasan to use his email address in the scheme and did not have anything else to say to voters in Millbourne.
At Hasan’s sentencing hearing, several family members and friends attended to attest to his character, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Dubnoff, who prosecuted the case, said it was because Hasan was in a position to gain the trust of others that he was able to commit these crimes.
Nina Ahmad, a Philadelphia City Council member who, like Hasan, is from Bangladesh, submitted a character reference letter for him, citing his helpfulness and work in the Bangladeshi community.
Ahmad did not respond to a request for comment about the letter.
Jim Allen, elections director for Delaware County, said cases like the one in Millbourne undermine faith in elections everywhere.
“The conspiracy theory minded individuals will take this and think a similar scheme can be done in a statewide or national election,” he told the judge. “There was real damage to the reputation of elections here, everywhere. And it was all due to a selfish motivation to gain a seat dishonestly.”
Both Hasan and Islam were ordered to surrender and begin their sentence by Aug. 15.
Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.
