Burkman and Wohl Plead to Intimidating Voters in Robocall Case

LANSING – Today, John Burkman, 59, of Arlington, Virginia, and Jacob Wohl, 27, of Fairfax, Virginia, pled no contest to orchestrating a series of robocalls aimed at suppressing the vote of predominantly black voters in Detroit in the 2020 general election, announced Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. They pled to:

• One count of election law – bribing/intimidating voters, a 5-year felony;
• One count of conspiracy to commit an election law violation, a 5-year felony;
• One count of using a computer to commit the crime of election law – intimidating voters, a 7-year felony; and
• Using a computer to commit the crime of conspiracy, a 7-year felony.

“After five years, I’m glad this case has finally reached a resolution,” Nessel said. “Deceptive and racially targeted suppression schemes will not be tolerated in Michigan. My office will continue to pursue and prosecute voter intimidation, no matter how long it takes, to ensure that Michiganders can exercise their right to vote free from fear and deception.”

Burkman and Wohl attempted to discourage voters from participating in the general election by creating and funding a robocall targeting specific and multiple urban areas across the country, including Detroit. The calls were made in late August of 2020 and went out to nearly 12,000 residents with phone numbers registered to an address with a Detroit zip code. They promoted falsehoods that:

1. voting by mail would place voters’ personal information in a public database that will be used by police departments to track down individuals with outstanding warrants;
2. voting by mail would place voters’ personal information in a public database that will be used by credit card companies to collect outstanding debts; and
3. the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were attempting to utilize vote by mail records to track individuals for mandatory vaccines. 

The robocall named Burkman and Wohl as responsible for the calls and claimed them to be the founders of a “civil rights organization” named “Project 1599.” It closed with a message urging the predominantly Black recipients to not be “finessed into giving your private information to the man. Stay safe and beware of vote by mail.” The Attorney General has called the robocall an egregious example of voter suppression.

Following the formal charges from the Attorney General in 2020, both men were bound over for trial. Burkman and Wohl filed a motion to quash the charges in the circuit court. The circuit court denied this motion, and the defendants appealed to the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals declined to hear their appeal.

Burkman and Wohl then filed an application in the Michigan Supreme Court, which remanded the matter to the Court of Appeals and required it hear the appeal. The Court of Appeals heard the defendants’ arguments, ruling in a published opinion that the statute governed their conduct as alleged and that it was a constitutional application of the statute.

Defendants Burkman and Wohl then appealed that ruling to the Michigan Supreme Court, which upheld the validity of the statute, ruled that it governed the conduct as alleged, and remanded the matter to the Court of Appeals to apply a limiting construction of the law to ensure that it did not ensnare constitutionally protected speech. On remand, the Court of Appeals ruled that the alleged actions here would not be constitutionally protected speech. The Michigan Supreme Court then recently declined to hear an appeal of a lower court decision that upheld the criminal charges against Burkman and Wohl.

Burkman and Wohl will be sentenced before Judge Margaret VanHouten in the 3rd Circuit Court in Wayne County on December 1.

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