Arizona Republican Party Chairman Sergio Arellano filed a complaint Monday with the Maricopa County Attorney alleging that Democratic legislative candidate Tammy Caputi lied under penalty of perjury about where she lives. The complaint asks prosecutors to investigate possible felonies, forgery, and perjury, less than three weeks before Election Day.
Caputi is one of the Democratic nominees for the Arizona House in Legislative District 4. The complaint says she is a longtime North Scottsdale resident, which falls in Legislative District 3. It says her husband is still registered to vote at the family’s home there and that at least two of her children live there.
According to the complaint, Caputi updated her voter registration on or around Feb. 22 to a condominium on East Royal Palm Road in Scottsdale, which sits inside LD4, and the next day she filed nomination papers affirming she had lived in the district for a year and was a resident when she filed, under penalty of perjury. It also alleges that she voted in the July 21 primary using her fake address, which would be another violation of the law if she was not a resident of LD4.
The complaint relies heavily on reporting by the Arizona Republic, which obtained recent photos of the condo that show empty and near empty rooms, bare walls, closets and cupboards, and a kitchen counter that appeared to hold only real estate marketing materials. The Republic also reported that the condo is owned by two Democratic donors who each gave Caputi’s campaign the maximum contribution allowed by law, which amounted to more than $10,000. As was reported early in the Arizona Daily Independent, the owners later listed the condo for sale. The listing makes no mention of any tenants.
Arizona law defines residence as actual physical presence combined with an intent to remain. The complaint argues the condo has none of the usual signs of a home, including personal belongings and utility accounts in her name, and says the facts “point inexorably” to the conclusion that she never lived there.
The complaint says her conduct would violate at least five criminal statutes, including a class 6 felony for registering to vote where a person is not entitled to, a class 5 felony for swearing falsely on a registration, and the state’s perjury and forgery laws.
Caputi has maintained that she lives at the condo, even while the photographs show the condo empty, and her campaign for State House in LD4 continues.
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