Phone jamming suspect faces new charge Ex-New England official for RNC accused of conspiracy to prevent voting in ’02

Three weeks before he was scheduled to go to trial for allegedly jamming get-out-the vote telephone lines in New Hampshire on Election Day 2002, a Bangor man is facing an additional charge – conspiring to prevent residents from exercising their constitutional right to vote.

A federal grand jury in Concord, N.H., issued a new indictment on Tuesday against James Tobin, 44, the former New England regional political director for the Republican National Committee.

Arguments were expected to be heard today by U.S. District Judge Steven J. McAuliffe on six motions filed by Tobin’s de-fense team to dismiss the original charges. His trial was scheduled to begin on June 7 in the federal courthouse in Concord.

Both procedures are expected to be continued in light of the superseding indictment.

The timing of the new indictment, coming three days before the scheduled hearing on the motions to dismiss, is unusual, according to a former Maine U.S. attorney.

Superseding indictments that include additional charges most often are brought when new evidence is obtained in a case, Jay McCloskey, now a Bangor lawyer in private practice, said Thursday. McCloskey, appointed U.S. attorney by former President Clinton, worked 20 years as a federal prosecutor.

“To seek a superseding indictment three weeks before the trial and on the eve of a hearing on the motions to dismiss looks like there might be a problem in the case, and the prosecutor is trying to add another substantive count,” he said. “It looks to me like someone was looking for an additional arrow to have in the quiver to see if they can make it pierce the armor.”

Bryan Sierra, a spokesman for the Department of Justice in Washington, said Thursday that he could not comment on the timing of the new indictment.

“This case involves an ongoing investigation,” he said, “and in court filings previously, the government reserved the option to add or remove charges.”

Efforts to reach Tobin’s attorneys Thursday were unsuccessful.

The new indictment includes the original charges of conspiring and aiding and abetting others to make annoying and harassing phone calls. If convicted of those charges, Tobin faces up to five years in federal prison.

The new charge, however, carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.

Tobin is accused of telling Chuck McGee, former executive director of the state Republican Party, that former GOP consultant Allen Raymond could help with McGee’s plan to jam five phone lines set up by the Democratic Party and a ride-to-the-polls line operated by the Manchester firefighters union. Raymond then hired a telemarketing firm to make hundreds of hang-up calls.

McGee and Raymond pleaded guilty last year, agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors and received sentences of seven and five months in prison.

Tobin pleaded not guilty to the original charges in December. His arraignment on the new indictment had not been scheduled as of Thursday afternoon.

The motions to dismiss the original charges argue that the indictment should be dismissed because:

. Democrats who were the purported victims of the alleged scheme were on the grand jury.

. Tobin merely referred McGee to Raymond without agreeing to the scheme, so he cannot be charged with conspiracy.

. The intent was to “disrupt communication,” not to “annoy or harass” the recipients of the calls, so he was improperly charged under a statute intended to prevent obscene and threatening phones calls.

A Windham native, Tobin worked in Maine and Washington for former U.S. Sen. William Cohen in the 1980s. He also worked on the election campaigns of U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe.

In 1996, he ran the national presidential campaign of millionaire businessman Steve Forbes.

Last year, he founded a communications and political consulting company in Bangor. He stepped down as Bush’s regional campaign chairman on Oct. 15, 2004, when New Hampshire Democrats said in a separate lawsuit filed in state court they believed he took part in the phone jamming scheme.