By Brad Friedman on 12/13/2011, 3:10pm PT  

I missed this last week, but as we'd previously covered the stated intentions of Rightwingers to sabotage the 'Recall Walker' effort in Wisconsin by shredding and burning petitions and the death threats reportedly received by supporters of the effort to remove Wisconsin's anti-union Republican governor Scott Walker, I wanted to get this on record here.

Jeffery Karnitz, a 30-year old Wisconsinite, has now been cited with two felony election fraud counts for defacing recall petitions in the Badger State. He now faces a year and half in prison and a $10,000 fine for each count. This genius already has a fairly long wrap-sheet, but more on that in a moment...

The Journal Sentinel covers Karnitz' charges this way...

A West Bend man told police he intentionally scribbled over petitions seeking the recall of Gov. Scott Walker with the hopes it would "screw up the petition."

But when Jeffery Karnitz handed the defaced petition back to a recall volunteer, she told him, "I hope you know that's a felony,"· and from then, he told police, "I kind of kicked myself in the ass."

On Thursday, Karnitz, 30, was indeed charged with a felony,· "Election fraud - falsifying or destroying nomination papers, recall petitions, etc." --- which is punishable by up to 1 1/2 years in prison, two years extended supervision and a $10,000 fine.

According to the criminal complaint, Karnitz was driving down Highway 33 in West Bend Sunday when he saw a woman at 10th Ave. holding a placard reading "sign recall petitions here" with an arrow pointing down 10th Ave. He told police he stopped, and told the woman his opinions about Walker, then drove down to the signing site, where he scribbled on two petitions, one seeking recall of Walker, and one seeking recall of Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch.

After scribbling out names, he drove off. Recall volunteers noted his license plate and called police.

Karnitz appears, from both his rap sheet and a number of photos, including the following one, as posted on his own Facebook page, to be quite a piece of work. I'm sure he's an exception. Surely Walker's supporters aren't all like this guy, right?...

Karnitz is only 30, but already he's racked up a fairly lengthy record with WI law enforcement going back as far as 2000, for a number of largely petty crimes and misdemeanors, such as carrying a concealed weapon, possession of drug paraphernalia, small claims money judgement, DUI, operating an unregistered snowmobile, divorce, paternity, and a few other driving offenses.

The Wisconsin Circuit Court Access system doesn't allow for persistent search URLs, but you can look his name up here if you'd like to peruse his record. The record for his charges in the Recall Walker petition election fraud case is here [PDF].

FOX6 covered the story this way:

[Hat-tips to tbetz at dKos and ForThe Earthy at Facebook for pointing us there.]

                 

Article Categories: Election Irregularities, Election Fraud, Wisconsin, Accountability, Republicans, Election 2012, WI Recall Elections