Overview
- The Justice Department, which announced the case Monday, said Brenda Lee Brown Armstrong, 64, will plead guilty to one felony count for paying people on Skid Row to register to vote.
- Prosecutors say she offered $2 to $3 in cash and sometimes small items like cigarettes or phone cards to induce registrations and petition signatures.
- Court filings state she put her former Los Angeles address on some registrations, which could have caused vote-by-mail ballots to be sent to that location.
- Armstrong worked for about two decades as a paid petition circulator and was paid only for signatures from registered voters, creating a motive to register new signers.
- The FBI opened the probe after an undercover video circulated by James O’Keefe, and prosecutors said she appeared in federal court in Santa Ana on Monday; a formal guilty plea is expected in the coming weeks and the charge carries a maximum of five years in prison.