LANSING, Mich. (MIRS News) – Republican Attorney General candidate Matthew DePerno said Monday morning that allegations he is involved in a conspiracy to hack into and manipulate voting machines “are total garbage.”
DePerno’s comments came in an interview with Michigan’s Big Show’s Michael Patrick Shiels after Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office filed a petition seeking the appointment of a special prosecutor to consider potential charges against nine individuals – including DePerno and state Rep. Daire Rendon (R-Lake City), who wore a QAnon pin to a rally at the Michigan Capitol, as well as Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf and “Kraken” lawsuit attorney Stefanie Lambert Juntilla.
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“Ninety percent of the facts that she lays out, that she calls facts, in her petition are either false or I have no knowledge of what she’s talking about,” DePerno said on the radio show.
DePerno did not respond to MIRS’ request to share what details in the 10% are accurate.
Tyson Shepard, DePerno’s campaign manager, said in a statement that Nessel has a “history of targeting and persecuting her political enemies” and that she’s “desperate to win this election at all costs and is now targeting DePerno, her political opponent.”
The petition submitted to the Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council also names as targets of the investigation: Ann Howard; Cyber Ninjas CEO Douglas Logan; Ben Cotton, founder of the digital forensics company CyFIR; analyst Jeff Lenberg; and expert James Penrose. It alleges the unauthorized access occurred between March 11, 2021 and late June 2021.
Logan, Cotton and Penrose were named expert witnesses in DePerno’s Antrim County lawsuit alleging fraud in the 2020 election. CyFIR and Logan were also among those Arizona Senate Republicans named to audit ballots cast in Maricopa County after previous counts found no irregularities.
Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson asked the AG and Michigan State Police in February to investigate reports her office received of an “unnamed third party” who was allowed to access vote tabulator components and technology in Roscommon County.
DePerno announced his candidacy in July 2021 and he won the GOP’s endorsement convention in April.
However, it is little surprise that DePerno is a target of the investigation considering a Senate Oversight Committee report on alleged election fraud mentioned DePerno and the Antrim County lawsuit he filed alleging fraud.
Also at that time, Rendon said she had evidence of fraud, pointing to a “forensic audit” of voting machines conducted by Lenberg – an analyst DePerno used in his Antrim lawsuit.
The AG’s petition, signed by Criminal Trials and Appeals Division Chief Danielle Hagaman-Clark, claims the investigation shows “that DePerno was one of the prime instigators of the conspiracy” and that he, Rendon and Juntilla “orchestrated a coordinated plan to gain access to voting tabulators” in multiple jurisdictions following the 2020 presidential election.
Juntilla is one of the attorneys a federal judge sanctioned for bringing a frivolous lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results.
Five tabulators – described as having red tape in a “distinctive manner” covering an identification number – were taken to hotels and/or Airbnbs in Oakland County, where four others “broke into the tabulators and performed ‘tests’ on the equipment,” according to the petition.
“I have nothing to do with any hotel rooms or any Airbnbs,” DePerno said during the Michigan Big Show interview.
However, the petition notes: “It was determined during the investigation that DePerno was present at a hotel room during such ‘testing.'”
A Dominion voting machine with red tape is depicted in a 2021 video posted to DePerno’s law firm website. In the video, the narrator says DePerno’s legal team expert, identified in the video as Lenberg, has “voting machine and tabulating software,” which he runs through a mock election using seven ballots in an effort to show the machine is inaccurate.
The petition says Howard “coordinated printing of fake ballots” to run through the tabulators and that Leaf asked Irving Township Clerk Sharon Olson to “cooperate with investigators regarding an election fraud investigation.”
Olson then “turned over her tabulator to a third party,” the petition notes.
The petition notes that Nessel is ready for an outside attorney to consider possible criminal charges now because DePerno is the presumptive Republican nominee for AG – resulting in a conflict of interest.
In a separate letter to Benson, dated Friday and signed by Chief Deputy Attorney General Christina Grossi, the AG’s office recommends that the SOS provide additional education to all clerks outlining their legal obligation to safeguard election equipment.
In Michigan, it is a five-year felony for a person to obtain undue possession of a voting machine used in an election and it is a five-year felony to conspire with another to commit an offense prohibited by law, Grossi’s letter reads.
In a statement, Benson said there “must be consequences for those who broke the law to undermine our elections in order to advance their own political agenda.”
Nessel also referred potential violations of the legal field’s rules of professional conduct to the Attorney Grievance Commission.
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