Bring all involved in case to justice

The following letter appeared in the Aiken Standard today. Should you want to see the letter and any comments on the Aiken Standard web site go here  The letter was in response to the Aiken Standards excellent editorial regarding the Ginny Allen caper. To read the original story and the many comments about it go here

11/13/2009 11:14 AM
Bring all involved in case to justice

I was astounded to read in the Aiken Standard today that the case of Ginny Allen, who has admitted her involvement in an election scam involving Senator Ryberg, Jason Whinghter, Tom Young and Scott Singer, was being handled in a pretrial intervention process. This matter has been under investigation for more than a year. The idea that Ginny Allen might be let off with an apology letter and some minor community service is unacceptable, unless she has cooperated fully with the investigators and named her co-conspirators. If so, their names must be revealed and they too must be charged.


The letter below from Dick Smith was published in the Aiken Standard on Dec. 18, 2008, and is included herein as it laid out the facts right after this event occurred. It appears to me that the political system might be protecting its own by letting Ginny take a cushioned fall for the more powerful culprits. Citizens are sick and tired of the games that politicians play, and there must be transparency in government. We have made some progress in Aiken but there still is a long way to go. If we are outraged by the duplicity of politicians in Washington, then we must address corruption in our own backyard. If he has not already done so the County Solicitor should demand the names from Ginny and publicly charge all the culprits so that some faith in government can be restored.

“Who was hurt by election calls?

“With reference to the editorial concerning election law violations I agree completely that “it is time that laws dealing with election mischief are dealt with as felonies.” However, I most emphatically disagree with your statement that the “intended result of the election-eve deception was not realized.” Except for Ginny Allen and her-up-till-now undisclosed co-conspirators none of us can know for sure what the intended result was. It should be quite clear to the objective observer that the only person hurt by this reprehensible ploy was Scott Singer. Certainly there was no chance it would in any way affect the outcome of the Whinghter-Ryberg race since the polls showed Ryberg with more than 70 percent of the voters backing him. Ginny Allen, as an astute political operative, certainly knew that a last-minute attempt to hurt Senator Ryberg would be a waste of time and money.

“The facts are that Senator Ryberg, upon learning about the fraudulent calls, immediately issued an angry statement denying any responsibility for them and denied supporting any candidate. Senator Ryberg also requested SLED to investigate. As a consequence of this angry statement many voters may have assumed that Scott Singer had sponsored the calls. To correct this misapprehension Senator Ryberg issued another statement on June 12, wherein he “declared his belief that the other candidate for office mentioned in the illegal call, County Councilman Scott Singer, was not involved in the phone call.” For some reason this statement was never published in the Aiken Standard. Meanwhile critics used this spurious charge to cut into Singer’s well deserved good reputation and high favorability ratings.

“I for one am glad SLED has investigated and is continuing to investigate this matter. Let us wait until all the facts are in before we rush to judgment as to the effectiveness of the calls. – Dick Smith”

It is obvious the only candidate who could have been hurt by this illegal act was Scott Singer, and the only one who could have benefited was Tom Young. Since Tom Young denies any involvement we should take him at his word, but it is entirely possible that without his knowledge one or more of his supporters worked with Ginny. It is interesting to note that Ginny’s letter of apology only explicitly absolves Senator Ryberg. Aiken’s citizens deserve to know the truth.

So now after a year, the citizens and voters of Aiken need to know the facts of this case and be assured that “business as usual” politics will no longer be tolerated in Aiken.

Marianne Pecoraro

Aiken