Republican Dirty Tricks Lead to Jail
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
CONCORD, N.H. – A former Republican National Committee official was sentenced Wednesday to 10 months in prison for his role in the jamming of New Hampshire Democrats’ telephones on Election Day 2002.
James Tobin, 45, was found guilty in December of harassment by telephone.
Prosecutors said he helped arrange more than 800 hang-up calls that jammed get-out-the-vote phone lines set up by the state Democratic Party and the Manchester firefighters’ union for about an hour. Republican John Sununu defeated then-Governor Jeanne Shaheen for the Senate that day in what had been considered a cliffhanger.
At the time, Tobin was a regional official with the RNC and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, overseeing Senate campaigns in several states, including New Hampshire and Maine.
He later became New England chairman of President Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign.
