New York Attorney General Letitia James celebrated a $1.25 million win on Tuesday as conservative activists Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman reached a deal to pay James’ office and others for running a voter suppression campaign during the 2020 election.
In March 2023, a federal judge ruled in James’ favor in a lawsuit against Wohl and Burkman for their efforts to suppress Black voters ahead of the 2020 election. James had filed the lawsuit against Wohl and Burkman in May 2021 after an investigation by the Office of the Attorney General found that Wohl and Burkman orchestrated a broad voter suppression campaign that used robocalls to spread election-related misinformation to Black voters and others in an effort to discourage voting.
The federal judge had found the two men liable, saying in a ruling last year, that they “set into motion a full-scale voter suppression operation during the summer of 2020 to discourage eligible voters from voting by targeting mail-in voting in the 2020 Election.”
On Tuesday, a $1.25 million deal was reached by Wohl and Burkman with James’ office, the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and several individual plaintiffs, as the two men have agreed to pay the judgment to them.
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“The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, and it belongs to everyone. We will not allow anyone to threaten that right. Wohl and Burkman orchestrated a depraved and disinformation-ridden campaign to intimidate Black voters in an attempt to sway the election in favor of their preferred candidate. Now they will pay up to $1.25 million,” James said in a statement announcing the settlement.
In response to the deal, James took to X, formerly Twitter, to celebrate the judgment, adding that voting is a right she intends to continue to protect.
“Conspiracy theorists Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman must pay up to $1.25 million for their racist and dangerous voter intimidation campaign that targeted Black voters. Voting is our most basic democratic right, and I’ll always fight to protect it,” James wrote on X.
Newsweek has reached out to James’ office via email for comment.
While a judge must still approve the agreement, if the two men “fail to pay at least $105,000 by December 31, 2024, and do not address the failure to pay within 30 days, the amount will increase to $1.25 million,” James’ office said.
Meanwhile, David Schwartz, an attorney for Wohl and Burkman, said in a statement his clients are satisfied with the settlement and are “pleased to put this case behind them, so they can focus on their families and careers.”
The settlement comes after Wohl and Burkman have previously faced penalties for running similar schemes during the 2020 election.
In 2022, after authorities in Ohio accused the two men of running a voter suppression campaign in multiple states, an Ohio judge ordered them to spend 500 hours registering low- and middle-income voters in the Washington, D.C., area.
In addition, in 2021 the Federal Communications Commission proposed its biggest-ever robocalling fine of $5 million against them after an investigation found they appeared to have violated U.S. robocalling laws. Under oath, both Wohl and Burkman admitted to creating and paying for the robocalls which contacted voters in Michigan, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois, the FCC said.
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