Last Updated on December 18, 2022
Yet another high-ranking member of disgraced ex-Congressman Scott Taylor’s (VA-2) failed re-election bid from 2018 has been convicted of charges related to election fraud, stemming from a scheme in which the GOP’ers forged the signatures of local voters in an effort to get a Democrat spoiler candidate on the ballot as an independent.
Robert “Rob” Catron, a top consultant for Scott Taylor’s 2018 re-election campaign, pleaded no contest earlier this month to massively reduced charges, in what appears to be a “sweetheart deal” with prosecutors.
Though he was initially indicted by a Virginia Beach grand jury on 10 counts of making false statements and election fraud and faced 100 years in prison, Catron managed to strike a deal, and plea the offenses down to a trio of misdemeanors.
Under the agreement, he pled no contest to three charges of “neglect of election duty.”
As a result, Catron received a suspended 36-month sentence, dependent on his “good behavior,” and will spend just a year on probation. Additionally, he will have to pay a $7,500 fine.
The conviction of Rob Catron marks the fourth time a member of Taylor’s 2018 campaign has been convicted in the election fraud scheme.
Preceding Catron’s conviction, ex-Taylor staffers Lauren Peabody, Roberta Marciano, and Heather Guillot each pled guilty to their own charges.
As National File previously reported:Â
The Taylor campaign sought to get a two-time Democrat candidate for Congress, Shaun Brown – who Taylor defeated in 2016 – on the 2018 ballot as an independent, for the purpose of splitting the Democrat vote and, in theory, propelling Taylor to victory. Court documents state that Taylor campaign staffers were instructed by senior members of the campaign and Taylor himself to collect ballot access signatures on Brown’s behalf. The effort failed, and Taylor was defeated by a 3-point margin in the general election, after losing the faith of the 2nd District’s conservative voters, over his support for amnesty and the LGBT lobby.
Amazingly, in an unrelated incident, Democrat Shaun Brown herself was sentenced to prison time of her own, after being convicted of defrauding a federal program meant to feed hungry children.
Though Taylor hasn’t been indicted and prosecutors now say that the case is closed, the ex-Rep. has openly admitted that he was aware of and participating in the scheme to get Brown on the ballot. The only question that remains is whether or not Taylor broke the law.
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After Catron’s sentencing, National File spoke with Jarome Bell, a former opponent of Taylor’s who was censored by Big Tech and targetted during his 2022 run with Kevin McCarthy’s FTX money, in a naked effort to sink his America First campaign.
Taylor was an early backer of Jen Kiggans in 2022, the McCarthy-aligned Republican that benefited from more than $5 million worth of Kevin McCarthy’s dark money.
Bell blasted the entire situation and said something just isn’t adding up with Scott Taylor’s pleas of ignorance of the election fraud scheme.
“After running for Congress two times, IÂ knew everything that was going on within my campaign – good or bad,” Bell told National File. “The buck stopped with me!”
“In my honest opinion, there is no way that Scott Taylor didn’t know about what was going on. I find that very hard to believe. People that worked on his campaign were getting signatures for a third party and he didn’t ask questions?”
“Being an ex-Navy SEAL and an ex-Congressman, Scott Taylor should be capable of paying enough attention to detail to avoid something like this within his own campaign,” Bell went on. “It’s no wonder that he lost not once, but twice, to Elaine Luria.”
“He’s taking plausible deniability while the people that believed in him and trusted him all got thrown under the bus and he allowed it to happen. But, he has his story and he’s sticking to it.”