Hempstead schools assistant clerk plans to sue district over alleged voter fraud

An assistant clerk with the Hempstead school district, suspended amid allegations of election rigging during the last school board election, plans to sue the district and the superintendent for implicating her in an alleged voter fraud scheme.

Lottie Whitehead, district clerk pro tempore, filed a notice of claim on Aug. 21 against the district and the superintendent, Gary Rush, accusing them of bullying and scapegoating her in the discredited May election.

Alleged impropriety in the school board election, including missing and destroyed ballots, prompted both an internal investigation and a probe by the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office.

Four candidates — Victor Pratt, Gwendolyn Jackson, Caprice Rines and Eugenia Girtman — ran for a three-year term on the board.

A June 9 audit of the election found that the district clerk, April Keys, made "a concerted effort ... to help her supported candidate," Pratt, who ended up winning the seat with 288 votes, 81 more than the next candidate.

Newsday previously reported that the internal investigation uncovered surveillance video of Pratt leaving Keys' office the night before the election with an estimated 100 absentee ballots. The school board also said that Keys delayed processing early vote applications.

After the election, investigators found torn-up absentee and early mail ballot applications in a garbage bag within a second garbage bag discarded in a dumpster outside the school, according to previous reporting.

School district attorney Austin Graff said that there was "potential criminal conduct" and suggested that there was voting fraud on a wider scale.

The district suspended Keys and Whitehead with pay, but according to the legal notice, Graff told Whitehead that she had been cleared and that he would say so publicly.

Instead, Whitehead’s attorney Don Rollock said, the district smeared her name in the press and implicated her in the election impropriety without giving her a chance to defend herself.

"She's innocent," Rollock told Newsday. "She had nothing to do with this, and instead of them turning around and clearing her name, restoring her back to her position, they have lumped her in there with everybody else."

Whitehead also claims that they tried to force her to accept a $52,000 pay cut and demotion without evidence of any wrongdoing.

"Meanwhile, they took her keys, cut off her from the computers, and this is all in front of her colleagues, the people she works with," Rollock said.

The lawyer said that Hempstead school district policy mandates that the district explain why it is taking disciplinary action.

He said that Whitehead has no relationship to Keys other than working under her.

"She's a regular clerk," Rollock said. "She has no decision making. She could care less which one of these people won. It doesn't matter to her. She's not involved in politics."

He also noted that she was never trained in her position.

In the notice, he said that the board of education and the school district impugned Whitehead’s reputation.

Rollock said that the school district leaked the investigation to the press but would not share the information with his client.

Graff declined to comment when reached by phone. A spokesperson for the superintendent, the school board and the district did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Whitehead’s attorney said that the mail-in voting process was ripe for fraud.

He said that candidates were responsible for signing off on proxy votes and had access to the district office where the ballots were kept.

The state Board of Elections ordered the election void, and in August voters returned to the polls to vote again for the three-year seat.

This time, Jackson received the most votes – 255. Pratt came in third with 48 votes.

When reached by phone, Keys said that she had filed her own notification to sue the district, but she declined to share it with Newsday.

Her attorney, Jerald Carter, did not respond to calls seeking comment.