Attorneys for a woman the Arizona Attorney General’s Office describes as a key player of a “modern-day political machine” which seeks to influence municipal election in San Luis through illegal methods claim that calls to put their client in prison are based on racial discrimination.
Guillermina Fuentes pleaded guilty back in June to a Class 6 felony of ballot abuse after being caught on video during the 2020 Primary Election with several ballots she had no right to have. She was in a Yuma County courtroom Thursday for a mitigation hearing to present evidence that Judge Bruce Nelson will use next week in deciding whether Fuentes, 68, serves probation, jail time, prison time, or a combination.
One of the most controversial comments made by Fuentes’ legal team during Thursday’s hearing accused Assistant Attorney General Todd Lawson of seeking a stiffer sentence than in other Arizona election fraud cases because Fuentes is Hispanic.
That comment did not set well with Gary Garcia Snyder, a San Luis resident who said it was offensive and showed a lack of respect for the community.
“The rule of law is colorblind,” Snyder said after attending the hearing. “It doesn’t matter your age, your political party, your race, or your color. The victims in this case are the San Luis community that entrusted Ms. Fuentes. It is offensive that she thinks her age or her ethnicity should be a get out of jail free card.”
Snyder, who is running for the State House of Representatives, is a key state witness in the case against Fuentes, as he recorded the videos outside two polling places in San Luis in August 2020 that exposed a long-running practice by a small group of people of collecting ballots and in some instances event paying for ballots.
It became illegal in Arizona in 2016 to possess someone else’s ballot except under limited situations.
“You broke the law, you knew you were breaking the law, and you admitted breaking the law in the plea deal you signed,” Snyder said he would tell Fuentes if he had the chance. “Democracy requires honesty. You cheated, you did the crime, so own up to it.”
Snyder also said it seems Fuentes has a very low opinion of the nearly 40,000 people who live in San Luis, based on arguments made Fuentes’ defense attorneys that local voters were essentially too disinterested in learning about candidates and too lazy to vote or self-govern.
A sentencing hearing would typically be conducted immediately after the mitigation hearing. However, Nelson put off sentencing until Oct. 13 to allow Fuentes and her attorneys time to review thousands of text messages disclosed by the AGO related to the ongoing ballot harvesting investigation.
Much of Thursday’s mitigation hearing focused on Fuentes’ rough life as a migrant child and then as the female owner of a construction company. There was also frequent mentions of her community service, including a letter of support and in-court testimony from Yuma County Supervisor Lynne Pancrazi.
Fuentes’ defense team also noted there is nothing illegal in Arizona about looking at someone else’s ballot before it is dropped off or mailed in. It is also not illegal to give one’s opinion on which candidates to vote for, according to the defense argument.
The only thing Fuentes did wrong in this instance was to deliver other voters’ ballots without a legal right to do so, which her attorneys argue does not warrant incarceration given she has no prior arrests.
To back up that point, the defense presented testimony that in dozens of election fraud cases in recent years no one went to prison who did not have an extensive criminal history. Probation is the appropriate sentence, Fuentes’ attorneys argue.
But the State’s arguments for a one-year prison term point out that none of those prior cases involved Arizona’s new 2016 ballot harvesting law. In addition, Fuentes’ case should not be compared with people who either incorrectly believed they could vote or who decided to vote for a recently deceased loved one, Assistant Attorney General Todd Lawson argued.
Instead, Fuentes’ conduct dealt with deeper election integrity issues, as she inserted herself in the voting process by touching and reviewing other peoples’ ballots, Lawson argued. He also highlighted that some mitigation witnesses with a business and political connection to Fuentes -like Pancrazi- based their letters of support and testimony on what Fuentes told them about the case, not on review of court records and investigative reports.
One such public document is a report of a Dec. 4, 2020 interview with Fuentes about several ballots she took from a folder outside the Cesar Chavez Community Center on Aug. 4, 2020. According to AGO Special Agent Roger Geisler, Fuentes claimed one of the ballots belonged to her husband, Carlos Aguay Fuentes Sr.
But Yuma County election records showed the husband’s ballot had already been received on July 27.
That same AGO report describes one of Snyder’s videos showing Fuentes removing an early voting ballot from the envelope and “writing on it” before putting the ballot back in the envelope. When confronted with the video weeks later, Fuentes said she did not recall the incident but perhaps she had “finished voting something.”
Fuentes continues to serve on the Gadsden Elementary School District board and on the City of San Luis Planning and Zoning Commission despite pleading guilty to a felony. She previously served as the city’s mayor and has had ties to various social services organizations.
Fuentes’ co-defendant, Alma Yadira Juarez, pleaded guilty back in March to a Class 1 misdemeanor of ballot abuse based on her actions in August 2020 in collecting four early ballots from Fuentes and then depositing the ballots in an official election dropbox.
Under terms of Juarez’s plea deal, she admitted not having legal authority to be in possession of those ballots. Her plea deal calls for Fuentes is to be formally sentenced first after which Juarez will be sentenced.
There is no question about Juarez’s sentence – in that the judge previously agreed to be bound by a stipulation between Juarez and the attorney general’s office for probation instead of incarceration. However, Nelson has discretion to decide whether Juarez’s term of probation is supervised or unsupervised.
READ MORE ABOUT SAN LUIS:
Impact Of Systemic Voter Fraud Will Be Felt In San Luis For Long Time
Missed Or Ignored Clues Allowed Ballot Harvesting Ring To Act With Impunity