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SALT LAKE CITY — Thirteen people were charged Friday with a variety of crimes, including fraud, forgery and improperly collecting election signatures in last year's special election for the state's 2nd District House seat.
The Utah Attorney General's Office filed multiple indictments in several Utah counties against several people from Utah, Nevada and Washington, accusing them of participating in a scheme to submit fraudulent voter signatures for an unnamed candidate for office.
The state previously charged Timothy Francis Mooney, 62, of Arizona, with two counts of violation of certificate of nomination procedures, a class A misdemeanor, after prosecutors said he paid signature gatherers improperly. Utah's election code prohibits paying signature gatherers based directly on the gross number of signatures submitted to a filing official.
The charges don't specify which candidate the people were allegedly supporting, but candidate Bruce Hough's campaign manager previously told KSL that Mooney turned in signatures to Hough's campaign.
Those charges alleged Mooney entered into contracts with two signature gatherers between June 12 and June 14 and agreed to pay one of them "per gross signature gathered if the validity rate of those signatures remained at 80% or greater."
According to court documents filed Friday, one of those signature gatherers was Daniel Jacob McWilliams, 23, of Layton. McWilliams is charged with communications fraud, two counts of identity fraud and making a false/inconsistent material statement, second-degree felonies; plus forgery, a third-degree felony; and violation of certificate of nomination procedures, a class A misdemeanor.
McWilliams is the sole owner of the company Battleground USA LLC, and entered into a contract with Mooney in June 2023, according to charging documents. He then worked with his business partner and friend Matthew Douglas Imhof, 22, of Vineyard, to lead crews of signature gatherers in several counties contained within the 2nd Congressional District, which stretches from Davis County to Washington County.
Imhof hired Nevada residents to help gather the signatures, the charges allege, which runs afoul of Utah's law that requires all signature gatherers be residents of the state. Imhof was indicted on similar counts as McWilliams, but was also charged with tampering with evidence and accused of deleting potentially incriminating texts between himself and McWilliams after he became aware he was under investigation in December 2023.
McWilliams and Imhof did not have the Nevada residents sign the required verification forms and instead "devised a scheme whereby they would submit the petitions circulated by Nevada residents under the names of Utah residents," according to the charging documents. Prosecutors say both men signed some of the verification forms fraudulently, and asked other friends to do so as well.
Imhof is also accused of telling the signature gatherers in his crew to "forge a couple voter signatures per page of the nomination petitions because they would get paid per signature," the charges say.
Delphin Kilembi, 25, a former roommate of McWilliams, agreed to sign a form after McWilliams said he needed someone who had lived at his Provo apartment "for a year to sign a piece of paper," according to the charges, adding that Kilembi was not an employee of the company and "had not circulated the petition attached to the circulator verification form that he signed."
Kilembi is charged with violation of certificate of nomination procedures, a class A misdemeanor, accusing him of verifying signatures that he did not witness.
McWilliams is also accused of using personal identifying information from other Utah residents on the verification forms without their permission, and of signing the form "with the Utah residents' names, making it appear that the Utah resident had completed the verification form," according to prosecutors.
The business partners went so far as to create a "false lease agreement for one Utah resident whose name they used without permission," to use as proof of the person's residency in Utah, the charges state.
Prosecutors say Mooney and an associate later expressed concern about the validity of the signature packets submitted by McWilliams and Imhof, and asked that McWilliams ask each of his employees if any signatures were forged before they submitted them to the lieutenant governor's office.
"On June 29, 2023, (McWilliams) and Mr. Imhof created fake text messages purporting to be from the Utah residents whose identities (McWilliams) and Mr. Imhof had used without permission," which were then submitted to allay Mooney's concerns, the charges allege.
The packets were then submitted to the Utah Lieutenant Governor's Office.
In total, prosecutors say McWilliams was paid over $58,000 for his work on the contract. He paid Imhof $15,521, $12,000 of which was disbursed to the signature gatherers — Imhof retained $3,700, according to charging documents.
Aside from McWilliams and Imhof, several others were charged in relation to the alleged scheme. McCoy Wade Fritz, of Saratoga Springs, was charged with violation of certificate of nomination procedures, a class A misdemeanor, accusing him of giving Imhof permission to use his personal information on a verification form. Fritz allegedly sent Imhof a photo of his driver's license for reference.
Kennewick, Washington, resident Daniel Kneipp Cancado was charged with identify fraud and two counts of forgery, third-degree felonies, with prosecutors accusing him of using the name and address of his brother, a Provo resident, to verify the signatures he collected. The packets submitted under his brother's name also contained multiple forged signatures, according to charging documents.
Imhof is charged with communication fraud, two counts of identity fraud, forgery and tampering with evidence, third-degree felonies; plus two counts of violation of certificate of nomination procedures, a class A misdemeanor.
Multiple residents of the Las Vegas area also face forgery charges, after allegedly forging the signature of voters in the St. George and Cedar City areas. One, Xavier Amadeus Walker, admitted to forging a quarter of all signatures he collected, according to prosecutors.
The following other individuals are each charged with forgery, a third-degree felony:
- Calin Damon Farrimond, of Las Vegas
- Jacob Aaron Martion, of Las Vegas
- Jaden Scott Biggs, of Las Vegas
- Kohlman Matthew Smith, of Las Vegas
- Luke Daniel Greenwood, of Henderson, Nevada
- Toby Joshua Roberts, of Las Vegas
- Xavier Amadeus Walker, of Las Vegas
- Zakrea Numan Abraham, of Las Vegas
