Former Louisiana Police Chief, City Councilmember Plead Guilty in Federal Vote-Buying Case

A person walks past a sign during a runoff election for Louisiana governor at a polling station at Quitman High School in Quitman, La., on Nov. 16, 2019. Matt Sullivan/Getty Images

Two officials in Amite City, Louisiana, pleaded guilty on July 21 to criminally violating federal election laws in a vote-buying case, the Department of Justice announced.

Court documents show former Amite City Police Chief Jerry Trabona, 72, and current Amite City Council member Kristian “Kris” Hart, 49, pleaded guilty to conspiring to pay and offering to pay voters residing in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, for voting in the 2016 primary and general election.

During both of those elections, Hart was running for his current seat on the City Council. Trabona was up for reelection as police chief.

Prosecutors said the two officials admitted that they conspired with each other to pay or offer to pay voters and then carried out the plan.

In a December 2021 news release, federal prosecutors said the two men “solicited and hired individuals to identify potential voters, and transported those voters to the polls where they were provided with the names and candidate numbers of candidates, and paid the voters to cast their ballots for candidates.”

Providing a voter with money or something of value in exchange for voting is a federal crime.

‘We Must Have Fair elections’

Trabona and Hart pleaded guilty to the charges in federal court in New Orleans on July 20 and are scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 1.

In addition to the conspiracy with Trabona, Hart also pleaded guilty to three counts of paying and offering to pay voters during both the 2016 and 2020 elections.

The voters who had received the money were not identified, but court documents (pdf) state that Hart gave his “vote buyers” several hundred dollars with the understanding that each voter should receive $10 to $20.

They face up to five years in prison on each count.

The FBI began investigating allegations of vote buying in Tangipahoa Parish in 2018.

“We must have fair elections, free from the taint of corruption, to ensure a fully functional government,” stated U.S. Attorney Duane A. Evans for the Eastern District of Louisiana in a news release. “Safeguarding the voting process is of paramount importance to our office and the Department of Justice.”

Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin said in a statement on July 21 that the case against Trabona and Hart was “substantially” aided by the efforts of the investigators in Louisiana’s Elections Compliance Unit (ECU), as a result of an official review of Emmanuel Zanders III following the 2020 federal election.

Zanders, an eight-year Amite City councilman for the 3rd District, pleaded guilty in July 2021 to one misdemeanor count of election fraud.

Prosecutors said he submitted voter registration applications that he knew were false or fraudulent.

“Our investigators were alerted to Mr. Zanders’ activities by the Tangipahoa Registrar of Voters, and we quickly developed information that led to his arrest and a guilty plea deal that mandated his resignation from the Amite City Council in January of 2021,” Ardoin said. “I remain committed to keeping Louisiana free of corruption in the voting process and ensuring that our elections are fair, safe, accurate and free of disruption by corrupt actors.”