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Charges dropped in Tate case
Two election fraud and nine perjury charges against Mark D. Tate were dropped Oct. 15 at a hearing in Loudoun County Circuit Court.
“I'm really happy,” said Tate, who had been indicted May 21 on the 11 felony counts. He said the pretrial experience, which lasted more than five months, “was a lot to go through.”
Tate, a Middleburg restaurateur and Purcellville resident, had made more than 250 misfilings in his campaign finance reports to the Virginia Board of Elections, according to Special Prosecutor Matt Britton.
Tate sought state office during the 2003 and 2007 Republican primaries. The reported misfilings were from both elections.
He lost the Republican primary to Jill Holtzman Vogel, who, Tate's defense argued, conspired to bring these charges against Tate in an effort to ruin his election hopes.
Vogel won the primary by more than 30 percent of the vote.
The hearing, which was scheduled to last three hours, lasted less than 15 minutes after Britton requested the charges against defendant Tate be dropped.
Britton cited the appearance of impropriety on behalf of the case's original prosecutor, Commonwealth's Attorney Jim Plowman, as a reason to drop the charges.
Britton, commonwealth's attorney for King George County, replaced Plowman as prosecutor for the case when Plowman recused himself in April.
Plowman said he did so to avoid the appearance of bias against Tate.
After the hearing, Britton said there would be a “new presentation to the grand jury” of the evidence against Tate, in effect a prosecutorial do-over.
Tate's attorney, Edward MacMahon, filed motions Aug. 7 and Aug. 30, asking to subpoena Plowman, who, MacMahon said, had tampered with the grand jury investigation and leaked grand jury information to the media.
Plowman, a Republican, is seeking re-election this fall as Loudoun's commonwealth's attorney and has publicly endorsed Vogel.
When asked if the defense would again seek to call Plowman during the next court proceedings, defense attorney Ed MacMahon said, “There is no case, so there's nothing do defend.”
But he said this did not diminish Plowman's underhanded dealings against his client.
“I noticed the commonwealth didn't seek to investigate anyone else,” he said.
Tate's trial was scheduled to begin Nov. 26.
Vogel faces Karen Schultz (D) and Donald Marro (I) Nov. 6 at the polls.
Contact the reporter at hhobbs@timespapers.com
Once again we see another GOP constitutinal officer who has disgraced himslef, the office, and the County. Plowman should apologize and then resign. Hopefully the Court will take appropriate action. Mr. Britton has INTEGRITY!
Posted by BTO
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