4th man charged in GOP phone-jamming scam

CONCORD, N.H. – The former co-owner of a telemarketing firm pleaded not guilty Monday to participating in a Republican scheme to jam Democrats’ get-out-the-vote phone lines on Election Day 2002.

Shaun Hansen, 34, of Spokane, Wash., was indicted by a federal grand jury on March 8, but the charges were not made public until his arraignment Monday.

Hansen is charged with conspiring to commit and aiding the commission of telephone harassment. Prosecutors say he was paid $2,500 to have employees at Idaho-based Mylo Enterprises place hundreds of hang-up calls to phone lines installed to help voters get rides to the polls on Nov. 5, 2002. Among the contests decided that day was the close U.S. Senate race in which Republican Rep. John Sununu beat outgoing Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen.

Three others have been convicted for their roles in the scheme.

Former state Republican Executive Director Chuck McGee pleaded guilty to devising the idea of jamming the lines and served seven months in prison. Telemarketer Allen Raymond pleaded guilty to executing the plan and is serving a three-month sentence.

James Tobin of Bangor, who had served as New England chairman of President Bush’s re-election campaign, was convicted in December of telephone harassment charges and faces up to five years in federal prison.

He is scheduled to be sentenced in May.

Hansen had faced similar accusations last April but he never was indicted, said his lawyer Jeffrey Levin, who declined to comment further on the case Monday. In July 2004, Hansen told the Idaho State Journal that GOP Marketplace hired his company to call six phone lines installed by the New Hampshire Democratic Party and a firefighters union but he didn’t know the purpose of the calls. He added he and the company’s other owner thought their instructions were odd, so they met with GOP Marketplace attorneys, who told them not to worry.

According to court documents, Hansen now works at a Rent-a-Center. The government paid for his travel to and from New Hampshire because he could not afford the cost. His trial is scheduled for May 2.

Lily Chinn, prosecutor, did not immediately return a phone call on Monday at the Justice Department seeking comment.