Tate Seeks Subpoenas of GOP Leaders in Election Fraud Case

A bruising courtroom battle involving local Republican leaders could be looming in Loudoun County, where a former GOP state Senate candidate who faces election fraud charges is alleging that his opponents within the party launched the criminal investigation to derail his campaign.

Mark D. Tate wants to subpoena three locally prominent Republicans to testify, according to motions filed by Tate's attorney in Loudoun Circuit Court last week. The Middleburg restaurateur was indicted on nine charges of election fraud in January, three months after a judge had dismissed similar charges against him. Both indictments involve alleged misstatements that Tate made on campaign finance reports he filed during his runs for public office in 2003 and 2007.

Tate's attorney, Edward B. MacMahon Jr., is rolling out some of the same strategies he used to fight last year's indictment -- alleging, for example, that prosecutors leaked damaging information about his client to destroy his candidacy. This time, though, the tactics seem more aggressive.

In the earlier case, MacMahon tried to subpoena Loudoun Commonwealth's Attorney James E. Plowman, who initiated the investigation. This time, court documents show, he is seeking testimony and e-mail records not only from Plowman but also from state Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel (Winchester), who defeated Tate in the Republican primary in June, and Warrenton Town Attorney Whitson W. Robinson, a Holtzman Vogel supporter who chairs the Republican Party of Fauquier County.

MacMahon alleges that Plowman "pushed prosecution as a favor to a political ally" and friend -- Holtzman Vogel -- and that Plowman and Robinson improperly leaked information about the investigation during the Republican primary campaign. Plowman turned over the case to a special prosecutor two months before the primary after questions arose over the timing of the first indictment.

It remains to be seen whether a judge will grant the subpoenas. A judge in the earlier case denied MacMahon's motion to subpoena Plowman. A hearing on the new motions has been scheduled for March 11.

Asked to comment on MacMahon's recent filings, Holtzman Vogel scoffed at the implication that she might have played a role in the indictments.

"Any allegation that I somehow have any power over the criminal justice system or two separate grand juries -- the suggestion that I control that process -- is preposterous," she said in an interview yesterday. "And frankly, it's just a little insulting to the people in the criminal justice system, to people who have been on grand juries and to judges who, I think, take this very, very seriously."

Plowman and Robinson declined comment.

"Mr. MacMahon has named me as a potential witness, and therefore I don't feel it's appropriate at this time to comment, so long as there is a current court proceeding underway," Robinson said.

A Loudoun Circuit Court judge in October dismissed without prejudice the charges of perjury and election fraud against Tate after special prosecutor Matthew J. Britton said the case was tainted by allegations of improprieties in the investigation. But Britton, the commonwealth's attorney in King George County, promised to take the evidence to another grand jury, and the new indictment was returned Jan. 22.

Plowman has said that he was first alerted to the alleged errors in Tate's campaign finance reports early last year by a woman who was a volunteer in Holtzman Vogel's campaign.

Soon, rumors about a possible indictment of Tate began appearing on the Web site of Virginia Conservation Action, a political action committee that had endorsed Holtzman Vogel. MacMahon suggested that Robinson, Plowman and perhaps others in the Loudoun commonwealth's attorney's office were involved in leaking information.

"Many persons connected with the Republican Party who were supporting Mr. Tate's opponent were made aware by someone involved in the investigation that Mr. Tate was going to be indicted," MacMahon wrote in one of last week's court filings. "Investigation in this case has determined that one of the persons that disclosed details of the investigation of Mr. Tate, including the fact that an indictment was forthcoming, was the Town Attorney for Warrenton, Virginia, Whitson Robinson."

Robinson was a supporter of Holtzman Vogel and is a friend of Loudoun Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney James P. Fisher, according to MacMahon's filings.

In April, Robinson "informed the Republican Party of Virginia that Mr. Tate was under criminal investigation and would be indicted," MacMahon wrote.

"Investigation has not determined who at the Commonwealth Attorney's office in Loudoun County leaked this information to Mr. Robinson," he wrote, "but it is noted that Mr. Fisher and Mr. Robinson serve together on the Board of the Republican Party of Fauquier County and have had many professional relationships in the past."

Fisher, who is vice chairman of the Fauquier County GOP, wrote in an e-mail yesterday to The Washington Post: "Much of the information in this case involves gossip, rumor, innuendo or suspicion as opposed to factual information. Such being the case, I will rely upon the orderly and fair litigation process. Moreover, since the matter is the subject of pending litigation it is not appropriate to comment further."

Tate was indicted May 21, three weeks before he was to face Holtzman Vogel in the primary.

In one court appearance in June, Britton claimed that Tate had failed to report some donations to his campaign, reported other donations multiple times and often reported wrong amounts or dates. "There are literally hundreds of misfiles in this case," Britton told a judge.

MacMahon said that none of the errors rose to the level of a crime. "He's clearly made mistakes before in filing returns, and so have many, many, many other candidates before him," MacMahon said at the time.

When last year's charges were dismissed, Britton said he wanted to restart the case, "not because there is any truth or merit to the allegations about [political maneuverings]; I just want to remove the appearance of it from the whole equation." Britton did not return a phone call yesterday seeking comment on MacMahon's new motions.

Holtzman Vogel, who was elected in November to represent the 27th Senate District, said yesterday that she was "just as surprised as anybody when those charges came back again."