Former republican attorney general candidate Matt DePerno and ex-state Rep. Daire Rendon have been indicted by a grand jury, facing criminal charges for their alleged role in a scheme to access voting machines following the 2020 presidential elections, according to case details provided by the Oakland County Circuit.
“This process is ongoing and still not over,” Muskegon County prosecutor DJ Hilson, who has been named special prosecutor in the investigation, said in a statement.
Via email, Hilson told MLive “there is still more to come,” but it wasn’t immediately clear if the grand jury is still deliberating whether to indict the seven others named in the investigation. Hilson declined to comment on grand jury proceedings.
DePerno – spelled erroneously online as “Matthew DeParno” – is facing four charges: Undue possession of a voting machine, conspiracy to commit undue possession of a voting machine, conspiracy to commit unauthorized access to a computer or computer system and willfully damaging a voting machine.
Rendon is also facing two charges: Conspiracy for undue possession of a voting machine and false pretenses.
All the charges they are facing can be charged as felonies.
DePerno, through his attorney Paul Stablein, said the charges are “unfounded and lack merit.”
“The indictment arises from a court-ordered forensic investigation of the Antrim County election where Mr. DePerno uncovered significant security flaws,” Stablein wrote in a statement. “He maintains his innocence and firmly believes that these charges are not based upon any actual truth and are motivated primarily by politics rather than evidence.”
In a statement released shortly after news of the charges broke, Hilson released a statement saying the charging decision was the result of “a thorough decision-making process by an independent citizen’s grand jury” and that he and his team “will be preparing for the next steps in this process.”
“This citizen’s grand jury carefully listened to the sworn testimony and analyzed the evidence as required by law and returned a decision to indict each of the defendants. ... Although our office made no recommendations to the grand jury as to whether an indictment should be issued or not, we support the grand jury’s decision and we will prosecute each of the cases as they have directed in the sole interest of justice,” he said.
Both DePerno and Rendon were arraigned via Zoom on Tuesday and released on $5,000 personal bonds, each standing mute to the charges according to staff for Chief Judge Jeffery Matis.
As of time of publication, DePerno and Rendon are the only ones officially charged for their role in allegedly seizing and tampering with a tabulator machine in the wake of the 2020 presidential election.
Niether DePerno, Rendon or the attorneys listed as representing them responded to requests for comment Tuesday.
RELATED: What to know about probe into alleged election machine tampering by Michigan AG candidate, others
Others who could face indictments, however, include Stefanie Lambert Junttila, an attorney who has repeatedly pushed to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Michigan and Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf.
Junttila claimed last week on a conservative podcast her lawyer had been notified she would also soon be indicted for her role in the ongoing tabulator probe. No record of charges against Junttila were found online as of time of publication Tuesday.
Already, conservatives are speaking out on the charges with House Minority Leader Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, expressing skepticism about the charges in a statement but nevertheless called them “very serious.”
“Many Americans are concerned about the recent flood of politically charged prosecutions in Michigan and around the country, and this prosecutor will need to prove his allegations in court beyond a reasonable doubt,” Hall said. “We’d like to see defending our democracy and safeguarding our elections be a priority for Democrats in the bills we pass in the House, not just in the headlines.”
In August 2022, Attorney General Dana Nessel requested a special prosecutor take over a probe into a team which allegedly stole and illegally analyzed voting machines in 2021 following the 2020 presidential election.
The five tabulators the team obtained “were taken to hotels and/or Airbnb’s in Oakland County,” according to Nessel’s petition, where four others – Jeff Lenberg, Ben Cotton, James Penrose and Douglas Logan – “broke into the tabulators and performed ‘tests’ on the equipment.”
By September 2022, Hilson was appointed by an independent body to oversee the case, removing Nessel from the equation as she was set to face DePerno in the November election in the race for attorney general.
“The alleged actions by these defendants, and others, who worked to erode trust in our election system caused undeniable harm to our democracy,” Nessel said in a statement in response to the charges. “We hope for swift justice in the courts, and that the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission takes a sincere and sober assessment of the actions of the attorneys involved in the campaign of circulating disinformation about our elections and any related criminal activities.”
Attorneys who participated in baseless post-2020 election lawsuits have faced penalties and even disbarment in Michigan and other states for bringing lawsuits without evidence alleging the election had been fraudulent, and Nessel had previously blasted Michigan commission for failing to discipline attorneys involved in state lawsuits,.
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