While the U.S. Attorney’s Office won an appeal hoping for stiffer penalties, for Hoboken politico Frank Raia, who was convicted of vote-by-mail fraud in connection to the 2013 municipal elections, he was only resentenced to time served late last month.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
“As was announced on July 15, 2021, the defendant is re-sentenced as directed by the Third Circuit’s Opinion of April 6, 2021 which vacated and remanded for further proceedings,” a July 27th judgment signed by U.S. District Judge William J. Martini says.
“The sentence is imposed pursuant to the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984.”
The judgement does not provide any details on why Martini opted to resentence Raia to time served.
At his initial sentencing in December 2019, the judge said he received around 140 letters on Raia’s behalf, which Martini called “very extraordinary” at the time.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office of New Jersey successfully appealed Martini’s sentencing of Raia, as HCV first reported, which was a 90-day prison sentence and $50,000 fine.
Raia had served about two thirds of his prison sentence at the FCI Fairton medium security federal correctional facility before Martini granted him an early release due to COVID-19 concerns at the facility.
A federal grand jury had convicted Raia of VBM fraud during the 2013 municipal elections, where he sought an at-large council seat and supported a referendum that aimed to loosen the city’s rent control rules (both efforts were unsuccessful), back in June 2019.