Posted by GET NY on 03:06:25 12/18/04

Monday, November 3, 2003 6:16PM EST

High court takes New York lawyer's voting fraud appeal

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) - Just in time for Election Day, a man who claims he is the first person prosecuted for voting in New York since Susan B. Anthony has appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court.
John Kennedy O'Hara filed his appeal at the high court on Monday, asking the justices to reverse a 1999 conviction for voting fraud. He was found guilty of voting at one address while living at another.
O'Hara claims that his is the first such case since suffragist Susan B. Anthony's 1876 trial for trying to vote in Rochester, N.Y. Only men were allowed to vote then.

"You gotta stop and take notice when a country starts locking people up for voting," O'Hara said Monday.

O'Hara, a lawyer, was brought to trial three times by the Brooklyn district attorney's office. He was sentenced to five years' probation, fined $20,000 and ordered to perform 1,500 hours of community service. He also was disbarred.

O'Hara, 42, admits he registered to vote at his girlfriend's address, not his own, in 1992 and 1993. He said he did not intend to commit fraud.

O'Hara unsuccessfully ran for election several times before the voting fraud charges. He claims he was charged because he had angered the Brooklyn Democratic political establishment.

O'Hara's latest appeal was dismissed by a federal judge earlier this year, and O'Hara is now fighting that ruling. He says his previous lawyers did not give him effective legal help.

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