Suspect seeks plea deal in GOP phone jamming

CONCORD, N.H. – The former owner of the telemarketing company that carried out a GOP phone jamming plot against New Hampshire Democrats is negotiating a plea deal with federal prosecutors.

Shaun Hansen, 34, is charged with conspiring to commit and aiding the commission of telephone harassment. His trial had been scheduled to begin Oct. 3. However, documents filed Friday indicate the trial would be postponed until Dec. 3 while lawyers work out a possible plea deal.

Federal prosecutor Andrew Levchuk and federal public defender Jeffry Levin both declined to discuss specifics of a possible plea deal.

In 2002, Hansen was owner of Idaho-based Mylo Enterprises, a telemarketing company prosecutors say was paid $2,500 to place hundreds of hang-up telephone calls to Democratic ride-to-the-polls phone lines on Election Day 2002, the year of a hotly contested U.S. Senate race in which Republican John Sununu defeated Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen.

Three former Republican officials were convicted in the phone jamming plot.

Former state Republican Committee Executive Director Chuck McGee served seven months in federal prison after admitting to devising the scheme. Allen Raymond, former president of Virginia-based GOP Marketplace LLC, pleaded guilty to executing the plan and served a three-month sentence. Prosecutors say it was Raymond who hired Hansen’s company to make the calls.

Raymond and McGee both testified against James Tobin, the former New England chairman of President Bush’s re-election campaign, who was convicted on telephone harassment charges last December and sentenced to 10 months in prison. Tobin, of Bangor, Maine, remains free while his appeal is decided.