From The Union Leader
By Anne Saunders

A jury yesterday convicted a former national Republican official of two telephone harassment charges for his role in a phone-jamming plot against New Hampshire Democrats on Election Day 2002. The federal jury acquitted James Tobin of a third charge, the most serious against him, of conspiring against voters’ rights.

Tobin, 45, of Bangor, Maine, was regional political director to the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 2002 election, the year of a closely watched Senate race between Democrat Jeanne Shaheen and Republican John Sununu. Sununu defeated Shaheen, 51 percent to 46 percent.

Tobin was President Bush’s New England campaign chairman last year, but resigned when the allegations became known. He faces a maximum seven-year prison term and $500,000 in fines when he is sentenced in March. The voters’ rights charge carried a potential sentence of 10 years and a $250,000 fine.

Separately, state Democrats are pursuing a civil lawsuit, which they hope will expose knowledge or approval of the scheme by GOP officials higher than Tobin. Republicans have insisted it was conceived and executed at the state level.

In August, the Republican National Committee acknowledged it had spent more than $722,000 to provide Tobin with lawyers from a high-powered Washington law firm. Party officials who said they ordinarily would not discuss such matters said they underwrote Tobin’s defense because he was a longtime supporter and assured them he had committed no crimes.

Read more Election Fraud