Comparing Charlie White's Indictment to Senator Richard Lugar's Voting Practices; Did the Senior Senator Commit 24 Felonies?

People still are confusing the issue of Sen. Richard Lugar's residency to be U.S. Senator with the Charlie White type voting offenses he appears to committed.  So I thought I would do a side by side comparison using White's actual indictment posted by the Indiana Legal Blog.

Secretary of State Charlie White

Count 1 (submission of a false voter registration), Count 3 (fraud on a financial institution regarding a claim of residency), Count 6 (perjury with regard to White's marriage application) and Count 7 (theft with regard to receiving pay as a member of the Fishers Town Board) are inapplicable to possible Lugar legal violations.  Let's examine the rest.

Count 2 (Perjury a Class D Felony, IC 35-44-2-1(a)(1)) of the White indictment says that he executed a form changing his 6994 Pintail Drive to 7527 Broad Leaf Lane, when he knew at the time of the statement he was residing at 13086 Overview Drive.

The details of Lugar's possible offense would be slightly different. When he submitted applications for absentee ballots, there is a perjury affidavit saying that he attests to the accuracy of the information on the form, including that he resides at 3200 Highwoods Court.

The statute of limitations on perjury, a Class D Felony is five years.  Lugar cast seven absentee ballots in the last five years, starting with the Mayor 2006 primary.  That means he would have committed seven separate acts of perjury during that time...assuming of course he doesn't actually live at 3200 Highwoods Court, which possibility is summarized below and was discussed in a previous blog post.

Count 4 (Voting in Other Precinct, a Class D Felony, IC 3-14-2-11) of the White indictment says that he committed the offense of "voting in Other Precinct, to wit: knowingly or intentionally voting in Delaware Township Precinct 12 indicating his residence was 7527 Broad Leaf Lane, Fishers, Indiana, when in fact he resided at the time at 13086 Overview Drive, Unit 5-B, Fishers, Indiana, which is locat3ed in Fishers, Fall Creek Township, Precinct 5.

Senator Richard Lugar

The statute of limitations on that felony is also five years.  Since May of 2006, Lugar voted 10 times using the 3200 Highwoods Court address, where he doesn't appear to have lived for decades.  That's 10 separate and distinct felonies.

Count 5 (Procuring, Casting or Tabulating a False, Fictitious or Fraudulent Ballot, a Class D Felony, IC 3-14-3-1.1(2)) of the White indictment says that he knowingly cast a vote in Delaware Township, Precinct 12 when he in fact lived in an address at 13086 Overview Drive which put him in Fall Creek Township, Precinct 5.

White used a residence he didn't live at to procure a ballot.  I checked...the law also applies to absentee ballots.  Unlike White who did it once, Lugar appears to have done it seven times during the 5 year applicable statute of limitations.

The final count:  7 + 10 + 7 = 24 felonies our senior senator would have committed if he does not live at his claimed residence of 3200 Highwoods Court listed on his voter registration form. As noted in a previous blog post, that is an address Lugar claimed on his registration form in 1969. For the past 41 years he has continued to vote using that house's address even though it appears to have been deeded away years ago, is currently owned by someone else, and there is another family registered at the address.

I am no fan of Charlie White.  Never met the man in my life.  But is it not important that our laws apply equally to people who are presently unpopular (Charlie White) as those who are presently popular (Richard Lugar)?  There is a term called the "rule of law" which applies to our judicial system.  It says that that the law should not be enforced differently depending on the person but that it should apply equally to all of us, regardless of whether we are rich or poor, famous or infamous.  It is an extremely important legal principle that I think we should all demand be upheld.