GOSHEN — Warrants for the arrest of several Goshen School Board members were issued Tuesday morning.
Elkhart County Court records show that warrants were issued for Allan Kauffman, Jose Elizalde, Mario Garber, Roger Nafziger and Andrea Johnson following charges being filed by the Elkhart County Prosecutor on Monday. Johnson ran but was not elected to the board. Kauffman, Elizalde, Garber and Nafziger are sitting board members.
The charges include a Level 6 felony count of filing a fraudulent report and a Class B misdemeanor of accepting a contribution made in another's name.
Kauffman is the only one with one Level 6 felony of filing a fraudulent report and five Class B misdemeanor charges of accepting a contribution made in another's name.
Bond is set for each of them at $2,500 cash only.
The charges stem from the 2022 school board election in which contributions were reportedly gathered and distributed to candidates to help pay for a mailer against three other candidates.
The mailer was sent to Elkhart Township residents Oct. 29, at a cost of $11,770, through MapleCity Printing.
At the April 27, 2023, Elkhart County Election Board, which is the body that turned over evidence to the Elkhart County Prosecutor, fines were issued to about 40 people for campaign violations.
During testimony leading up to the board's finding, former mayor and current school board member Allan Kauffman, who also happened to be Goshen Community School board candidate Jose Elizalde’s campaign chairman, said he was approached by Sue Neeb, a retired school teacher, who had concerns about 2022 Primary Election school board candidates Rob Roeder, Ryan Glick and Linda Hartman. The trio are associated with Purple for Parents, an advocacy group that speaks out against Critical Race Theory, Social Emotional Learning, and the state’s obscenity loophole, among other topics.
Neeb was concerned about the future of local education should the P4P candidates gain elected office. At the time, Kauffman said Neeb had wished to remain anonymous to prevent backlash of her husband’s business. Kauffman told her if she gathered the funds, he’d see to it that a mailer could be distributed.
Once the funds were collected, he distributed them among Goshen School Board election candidates’ campaigns, including those of Jose Elizalde, Mario Garber, Roger Nafziger and Andrea Johnson. Those campaign finance committees then paid MapleCity Printing for the cost of the mailer. The candidates listed Kauffman as the donor on campaign finance forms, which the board later discovered was technically untrue. Per election law, any person who donates more than $100 toward a campaign should be listed on finance forms.
The Elkhart County Election Board found that Neeb collected funds from a total of 32 individuals and, while she did keep some records, election law dictates that donors offer name, address, occupation, date and dollar amount for all donations — and Neeb did not collect all of the necessary information. In addition, the board identified three individuals who donated more than $1,000, based on Neeb’s own recordkeeping.
At the April 27, 2023, meeting of the Election Board, Elkhart County Chief Deputy of Elections Carol Smith also declared that due to the dollar amount collected, Neeb should have also developed her own committee, but her name wasn’t listed on any of the four candidates’ finance forms in connection with the donation.
After months of deliberation and evidence gathering, the Election Board issued civil penalties for those they knew to be involved in the campaign finance fraud, including anyone who donated to Neeb on behalf of the mailer. A total of 32 people donated to the mailer and anyone who donated less than $1,000 was fined $150, and the three individuals known to have donated more than $1,000 were fined $250.
Neeb was also fined for campaign finance violations, to the tune of $2,000. Unlike many of the candidates and donors involved, the board indicated that Neeb’s violations were intentional in order to avoid being known and did not offer her clemency in the fine cost.
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