A former campaign staffer for ex-Congressman Scott Taylor was charged Monday with submitting forged signatures on a petition to get a third-party candidate on the ballot to siphon votes from his opponent.
A grand jury indicted Lauren Creekmore Peabody on two counts of election fraud, said Circuit Court Clerk Tina Sinnen. The crime is a felony punishable by one to 10 years in prison and a $2,500 fine.
An arrest warrant for Peabody was issued afterward, Sinnen said, but she didn't know if it had been served.
Peabody is one of several members of the former congressman's campaign staff who circulated petitions to help independent congressional candidate Shaun Brown get on the ballot to compete against Taylor, a Republican, and Democrat Elaine Luria.
Roanoke Commonwealth's Attorney Donald Caldwell was asked to look into the allegations of forged signatures.
He wrote in a news release Monday that investigators determined there was no collusion between Taylor's staff and Brown's to have her run as an independent candidate. Brown made the decision on her own in late May, the release said. Taylor's staff then met sometime around June 1 and decided to use its campaign resources to help her collect the 1,000 valid signatures required to run.
"Whatever their motivation for that decision was, the bottom line is that circulating petitions in accordance with the law on behalf of a third party is not a crime," Caldwell wrote in his release. "Further, based upon information currently available, there does not appear to have been a directive or an expectation that these petitions would be circulated in violation of Virginia law."
It was not known Monday what Peabody's position was with the campaign or how long she worked for Taylor. Federal Election Commission records show that she was paid more than $13,000 from January 2017 to December 2018 by the candidate's office.
Taylor, who represented the 2nd Congressional District for two years, lost his seat in November to Luria.
Two months before the election, Brown was forced off the ballot when a Richmond Circuit Court judge ruled there were numerous instances of "out-and-out fraud" on the petitions from Taylor's staff.
A week before the 2018 election, Brown, who ran against Taylor as a Democrat in 2016, was found guilty of conspiracy, fraud and theft for defrauding a government program that provided meals for needy children. She was sentenced in March to three years in prison.
Taylor, whom Caldwell said cooperated with the investigation, issued a statement Monday reiterating previous claims that he didn't know his staff had violated the law.
"The special prosecutor's release today makes it concretely clear, as I have maintained all along, I knew nothing about any illegal actions that transpired," he wrote. "Further, it is entirely appropriate to hold those accountable for their actions in this matter."
The investigation of the alleged forgeries began in August, a day after public radio station WHRO reported finding five fraudulent signatures on political petitions turned in by members of Taylor's staff.
The Virginian-Pilot conducted its own investigation of the signatures last summer by attempting to contact each of the more than 500 people named on petitions that Taylor's campaign had submitted.
Of the 115 people reached either directly or through one of their family members, more than half declared the signatures to be forged. Four of the names listed were of men who had died in recent years.
The Pilot also determined that Virginia Beach Sheriff's employees circulated petition pages at the jail rather than the Taylor staff members who signed off on them, which is a violation of state law.
Caldwell was asked to investigate the allegations after Virginia Beach Commonwealth's Attorney Colin Stolle recused himself. Stolle's brother, Virginia Beach Sheriff Ken Stolle, had signed one of the petitions and allowed them to be circulated among his staff. Caldwell then asked Virginia State Police to help with the investigation.
The prosecutor could not be reached for comment Monday.
The task of collecting the signatures was delegated to Taylor's Virginia Beach office, the release said, which then submitted 56 petition pages to the state elections department.
Investigators determined that a group of six to eight people circulated them. Some cooperated with the investigation, but others did not, the release said.
"At this point in time, what actually happened within the campaign headquarters is still a subject of investigation due primarily to the lack of cooperation of key individuals," Caldwell wrote. "The full explanation of what happened will hopefully be answered in the months to come."