Bush campaign official sentenced to prison
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/3870809.html
Ex-Official Gets 10 Mos. in Phone-Jam Plot
CONCORD, N.H. - A former Republican National Committee official
was sentenced Wednesday to 10 months in prison for his role in
the jamming of New Hampshire Democrats' telephones on Election
Day 2002.
James Tobin, the third person sent to prison in the case,
was found guilty in December of harassment by telephone.
Prosecutors had asked for two years behind bars.
Prosecutors said Tobin helped arrange more than 800 hang-up calls
that jammed get-out-the-vote phone lines set up by the state
Democratic Party and the Manchester firefighters' union for
about an hour. Republican John Sununu defeated then-Gov.
Jeanne Shaheen for the Senate that day in what had been
considered a cliffhanger.
At the time of the phone jamming, Tobin was a regional official
with the RNC and the National Republican Senatorial Committee,
overseeing Senate campaigns in several states, including
New Hampshire and Maine.
Tobin later became New England chairman of President Bush's 2004
re-election campaign but stepped down when Democrats accused him
of playing a role in the jamming.
The former executive director of the New Hampshire GOP, Chuck McGee,
previously admitted coming up with the idea. He served seven months
for conspiracy.
Allen Raymond, former president of a Republican consulting firm
in Virginia, pleaded guilty to arranging for a telemarketing
business to make the hang-up calls. He received a three-month
prison sentence.
Phone records show Tobin made two dozen calls to the White House
in a three-day period around Election Day 2002. Ken Mehlman, then
White House political director and now chairman of the RNC, has
said none of the calls involved the phone-jamming.
Tobin was also fined $10,000 fine and given two years of probation.
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