Two right-wing political operatives who orchestrated a racist robocall campaign to suppress turnout among Black voters in Detroit dodged jail time Monday and were sentenced to one year of probation.
Jack Burkman, 59, and Jacob Wohl, 27, pleaded no contest to felony charges for creating and funding a series of robocalls in 2020 that pushed falsehoods about voting by mail.
Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Margaret VanHouten handed down the sentence under a Cobbs agreement between the defendants and the court.
A Cobbs agreement allows a judge to give defendants an advance estimate of their sentence in exchange for a plea. The Michigan Attorney General’s Office was not part of that agreement.
If Burkman and Wohl commit a crime while on probation, the judge can resentence them to jail.
Attorney General Dana Nessel personally appeared at the hearing and condemned the scheme.
“The defendants’ conduct used every racist dog whistle — fear of incarceration, fear of the government and fear of one’s benefits being taken away — to steal the most fundamental right that we often take for granted: the right to vote,” Nessel said. “While on probation, if they engage in these types of criminal behaviors, they will be held to account here in Michigan. We all are aware, and this Court has made these defendants aware, that continuing to engage in criminal conduct while on probation is a violation, for which the Department will be ever vigilant about bringing to the attention of their probation agents and this Court. If they willingly choose to engage in the types of repulsive behaviors they have gained notoriety for, this Court and my Department will be watching.”
Burkman and Wohl pleaded no contest to bribing or intimidating voters, conspiracy to commit an election law violation, using a computer to commit the crime of election law intimidation, and using a computer to commit conspiracy.
The robocall, sent to nearly 12,000 numbers linked to Detroit addresses in late August 2020, falsely warned that personal information used on mail-in ballots could lead to arrests for outstanding arrest warrants or be used to collect unpaid credit card debts. The calls also falsely warned that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could use the information to track people for mandatory vaccines.
The automated message identified Burkman and Wohl as the creators of the call and claimed they were speaking on behalf of a so-called civil rights group called Project 1599. It concluded: “Don’t be finessed into giving your private information to the man. Stay safe and beware of vote by mail.”
Nessel has long called the robocall an egregious example of targeted voter suppression in a majority-Black city.
The case moved through years of appeals. After being charged in 2020, the men unsuccessfully tried to get the case dismissed in the circuit court and then appealed to the Michigan Court of Appeals, which declined to hear the challenge. The Michigan Supreme Court ordered the appellate court to take the case, and the panel later ruled that Michigan’s voter intimidation statute applied to the conduct and did not violate the First Amendment.
The state Supreme Court upheld the validity of the statute and sent the case back to the Court of Appeals to ensure the law would not be applied to constitutionally protected speech. The appellate court ruled that the robocall did not qualify as protected speech. The state Supreme Court then declined a further appeal.
Both men still face consequences elsewhere. In a separate civil action in New York, Burkman and Wohl previously agreed to pay up to $1.25 million for similar voter suppression robocalls in multiple states.
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