Tobin jury to deliberate today Bangor man charged in 2002 election phone-jamming scheme

CONCORD, N.H. – Did a Bangor man participate in a “dirty scheme” to keep Democrats from getting to the polls on Election Day three years ago, or in the midst of a flurry of pre-election phone calls did he simply refer one political operative to another?

When it begins deliberations today, a federal jury of 11 women and one man will decide whether James Tobin, 45, is guilty of conspiring to jam the phone lines of New Hampshire Democrats.

The fourth day of the trial in U.S. District Court concluded about 4 p.m. Monday after closing arguments and instructions from U.S. District Judge Steven McAuliffe. Jurors apparently decided to head home for the evening and begin fresh this morning.

Tobin, who did not take the stand, is charged with conspiring with Charles “Chuck” McGee, the former executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party, and Allen Raymond, a Washington, D.C.-area political consultant, to hire an Idaho firm to make repeated hang-up calls to five Democratic offices and a firefighters’ union on Nov. 5, 2002.

Both men have pleaded guilty to federal charges, and both testified last week against Tobin.

“McGee gave Tobin every relevant detail of the crime, and it ended up happening,” Nicholas Marsh, a prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, told the jury Monday. “There’s an understanding between Mr. McGee and Mr. Tobin. On this alone, you can find Mr. Tobin guilty on all counts.”

McGee testified last week that a few days before the election, he came up with the idea of disrupting the Democrats’ communications on Election Day. He also said that he had spoken to a couple of telemarketing firms about implementing the idea, but they had turned him down. McGee testified that he asked Tobin whether he knew of anyone he could talk to about the idea, and Tobin gave him Raymond’s name and phone number.

“McGee and Raymond had never met each other, much less heard of each other,” Marsh said in the government’s closing. “James Tobin actively participated in pushing the ball along. … [By putting McGee in touch with Raymond] James Tobin made this happen.”

Defense attorney Dane Butswinkas countered that as the New England political director for the Republican National Committee, Tobin was getting and making more than 100 phone calls a day during the days leading up to the election.

“Isn’t it possible,” Butswinkas, of Washington, D.C., asked the jury, “that in the middle of getting a lot of phone calls, someone came up to him with a stupid idea … and he gave him a referral to [Raymond’s telemarketing firm], GOP Marketplace?”

In its 21/4-hour closing, the defense pointed out the way prosecutors “had selectively used phone records” to support the timeline Raymond outlined, instead of the one McGee testified to. Raymond testified that Tobin called him and told him to expect a call from McGee two to three weeks before the election. McGee said he did not call Raymond until the day before the election.

Using subpoenaed records that included more than 30,000 phone calls, Butswinkas said that the documents showed calls between Tobin and Raymond on Oct. 18, 2002, and Nov. 5 and 6, 2002, but none in between. If McGee’s timeline is accurate, the attorney told the jury, then Tobin never called Raymond to tell him to expect a call from McGee.

McGee testified last week that Raymond seemed surprised by his call, as if he were not expecting it. He also said that Tobin told him he would call Raymond and tell him to accept McGee’s call.

“James Tobin had a choice,” Andrew Levchuk of the U.S. Justice Department in Washington, D.C., told the jury in the prosecution’s rebuttal to the defense’s closing. “He could shut [McGee’s idea] down or go with it. He chose to go with it … James Tobin put himself in the middle of this.”

Tobin looked tired and haggard Monday. His wife, Ellen, his parents and two elder sons were in court Monday as they were for testimony last week. Friends, including Kevin Raye, who three years ago lost his race for Congress to U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud, a Democrat, huddled around the Tobins in the granite halls of the courthouse during breaks.

At one point during his closing, Butswinkas may have summed up the feelings of Tobin’s supporters.

“We probably all wish he had said [to McGee], ‘What? Are you an idiot?'”